Cera was born on June 7, 1988, in Brampton, Ontario. He is the son of Linda (née Cockman) and Luigi Cera, a technician. He is of Sicilian descent through his father.[2] His parents both worked for Xerox.[3] Cera has an older sister, Jordan, and a younger sister, Molly. He became interested in acting after viewing Ghostbusters repeatedly when sick with the chicken pox at the age of three.[4] Cera memorized all the dialogue and idolized Bill Murray.[5] He enrolled in The Second City, Toronto, and took improvisation classes.[5]
Cera attended Conestoga Public School, Robert H. Lagerquist Senior Public School, and Heart Lake Secondary School until grade nine. After starting acting, he completed school online through grade 12.[6][7]
Career
1999–2008: Child acting and breakthrough
His first role was an unpaid appearance in a Tim Hortons summer camp commercial.[6][7][8] That appearance eventually landed him a position in a Pillsbury commercial, in which he poked the Pillsbury Doughboy and had his first role with lines.[9]
The next year Cera made his theatrical film debut in the science fiction film Frequency (2000) as the son of Noah Emmerich's character.[11] Cera also appeared in the films Steal This Movie! and Ultimate G's: Zac's Flying Dream in 2000. He had his first leading role in the latter film, which was presented in IMAX theaters.[12][13] Cera appeared in several television films in 2001, including My Louisiana Sky and The Familiar Stranger. He also began voicing Josh Spitz in the animated series Braceface, which he continued until 2004.[11]
"Arrested Development never felt safe. Even the first season, we did thirteen episodes, and we thought we'd never do a back nine. So I never thought in a million years we'd get to make three seasons. I was happy we got that far. I thought it was really good, and I'm really proud of it. I don't think we made a bad episode."
He had a role in the critically panned Fox pilot The Grubbs in 2002, which was never aired.[15][16] But Cera successfully auditioned for a part in another Fox sitcom, Arrested Development. This began airing in November 2003 and ran for three seasons.[16] The show follows the formerly wealthy and dysfunctional Bluth family, with Cera playing George Michael Bluth, the teenage son of character Michael Bluth, played by Jason Bateman.[17] After three seasons, Fox canceled the series in 2006 due to low viewership, although it had received critical acclaim.[18] In 2006, Cera created and starred in a parody of Impossible is Nothing, a video résumé created by Aleksey Vayner.[19] Cera and his Arrested Development co-star Alia Shawkat guest-starred as a pair of college students in the teen noir drama Veronica Mars, in the episode "The Rapes of Graff" in 2006.[20]
Along with best friend Clark Duke, Cera wrote and starred in a series of short videos released on their website.[16] Duke originated the idea, as he was enrolled at Loyola Marymount University and used their videos for his film school studies.[21] In 2007, the pair signed a deal with CBS Television to write, produce, direct, and act in a short-form comedy series entitled Clark and Michael. The show featured guest stars such as David Cross, Andy Richter and Patton Oswalt, and was distributed via CBS's internet channel, CBS Innertube.[22]
Cera in 2007
In May 2007, Cera appeared in a staged comedy video that shows him being fired from the lead role of the film Knocked Up, after belittling and arguing with its director Judd Apatow, in a scene that mocks the David O. Russell blow up on the set of I Heart Huckabees.[16] Cera starred in the Apatow-produced teen comedy Superbad alongside Jonah Hill. Their characters in the film – two virgin teenagers about to graduate from high school whose party plans go awry – were based on the comedy's writers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg.[23]Superbad was released in cinemas in August 2007, topping the US box office for two weeks in a row.[24]
Cera's performance was critically acclaimed: The Atlantic reviewer said that the film "belongs to Michael Cera" for capturing "teenage sexual abashment as indelibly as he did in the role of George Michael [on Arrested Development]."[25]The New York Times said that he was "excellent" and CNN praised Cera and Hill for playing "off each other beautifully".[26][27]
Cera starred alongside Kat Dennings in the romantic comedy-drama Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist (2008), in which they played two strangers who bond over their shared love of a band and try to find their secret show.[32] He starred in the comedy Extreme Movie (2008), which was composed of vignettes focusing on teen sex.[33] Cera held a recurring role on the comedy series Childrens Hospital from 2008 to 2016 as Sal Viscuso, a hospital staffer who is known only by his voice through an intercom.[34]
Cera played a fictionalized version of himself in the independent romantic comedy Paper Heart (2009). It explored the fictional relationship between Cera and the film's writer Charlyne Yi, also playing herself. Cera and Yi composed the film's score together.[35] That year Cera starred opposite Jack Black in the comedy Year One, set during the Stone Age. The film, directed by Harold Ramis, was poorly received, although Time magazine critic Mary Pols said that Cera's performance saved the film from being a "catastrophe".[36] In his final film of 2009, Cera starred in Youth in Revolt, an adaptation of the eponymous novel. He played a shy teenager named Nick Twisp who creates a destructive alter ego, François Dillinger, after becoming smitten with a girl, played by Portia Doubleday.[16][37]
Cera had also begun to write. His first published short story, "Pinecone", appeared in McSweeney's Quarterly thirtieth issue in 2009.[38]
Cera was cast as Scott Pilgrim in the film adaptation of the graphic novel series by Bryan Lee O'Malley. The film's director, Edgar Wright, had seen his work in Arrested Development and believed that Cera was an actor "audiences will still follow even when the character is being a bit of an ass."[39] The film, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, follows Pilgrim, a musician who must battle the seven evil exes of his girlfriend Ramona (played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead). It was released in cinemas in August 2010. It did poorly at the box office, grossing $47.7 million against a production budget of $85–90 million.[40][41]
Cera made his theater debut in a production of Kenneth Lonergan's play This Is Our Youth in a two-week run during March 2012 at the Sydney Opera House. The play also featured his Scott Pilgrim co-stars Kieran Culkin and Tavi Gevinson.[43] A Broadway production at the Cort Theater opened in September 2014 and closed in January 2015. The New York Times theater critic Ben Brantley praised Cera for achieving "something remarkable": "the sense of an amorphous being assuming and losing shape in the course of roughly 12 hours".[44] Also in 2012, Cera played a supporting role in the drama The End of Love and appeared in the short film The Immigrant.[45][46]
Arrested Development was revived for a fourth season in 2012 by Netflix, with Cera reprising his role as George Michael Bluth. Cera also worked in the writers' room and served as a consulting producer during its production.[47] The season was released in May 2013.[48]
Cera collaborated with Chilean filmmaker Sebastián Silva on two films in 2013 – Magic Magic and Crystal Fairy & the Magical Cactus – both of which were filmed in Chile and premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival.[49] He spent "five hours a day learning Spanish" for Magic Magic.[50] Cera was featured most prominently in Crystal Fairy, in which he starred as a self-absorbed man travelling Chile with a woman named "Crystal Fairy" (played by Gaby Hoffmann) while bearing a cactus.[49] Along with Reggie Watts, Tim & Eric, and Sarah Silverman, Cera created the web-based comedy YouTube channel Jash in March 2013, where he has posted short films which he directs and/or stars in.[51][52] These films include the comedy-drama Gregory Go Boom (2013), in which Cera played a paraplegic man, and his directorial debut Brazzaville Teen-Ager (2013), co-starring Charles Grodin as his sick father.[53][54] He played an exaggerated version of himself in the apocalyptic comedy film This Is the End, which was released in summer of 2013 and featured his Superbad co-stars Jonah Hill and Seth Rogen.[55] Throughout 2013, Cera also appeared on Burning Love, a web spoof of reality dating competition shows,[56] and on an episode of Drunk History as John Endecott. Cera had previously played Alexander Hamilton in a comedic retelling of Hamilton's duel with Aaron Burr on the show's first episode as a web series in 2008 before it was adapted into a television show.[57]
Cera co-starred in the 2018 film drama Gloria Bell, with Julianne Moore as the title character.[72] Cera returned to his role as George Michael Bluth in the fifth season of Arrested Development in 2018.[73] In 2021, Cera lent his voice to the adult animated film Cryptozoo.[74] Cera appeared in the 2022 animated comedy Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank about a dog who wishes to become a samurai.[75] In 2023, he starred opposite Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling in the fantasy comedy film Barbie as Allan. In August 2023, he said in an interview he was working on getting financing to direct his first movie,[76] naming an adaptation of Masters of Atlantis by Charles Portis as one of two possible directorial debuts, having narrowly beaten out Clark Duke when first securing the adaptation rights.[77][78]
Music
Cera performing in 2011
In 2010, Cera contributed mandolin and backing vocals to the Weezer song "Hang On" from their album Hurley.[79] Cera has also established himself as the touring bass player in Mister Heavenly, an indie rock band originating in the American northwest,[80] and is a member of the band The Long Goodbye, along with Clark Duke.[81] Cera also played bass and sang back up during songs in both Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. He released his full-length debut album True That on August 8, 2014, through his official Bandcamp page.[82][83] The album features 19 original tracks, a cover of Roderick Falconer's "Play It Again" as well as a cover of Blaze Foley's "Clay Pigeons."[84]
In early 2015, Canadian musician Alden Penner released "Meditate", a track from his upcoming EPCanada in Space, which features Cera. Penner subsequently announced that the EP would be released on June 29, 2015, on City Slang records, as well as a European tour of the UK, Netherlands, France, and Germany, which featured Cera as both co-headliner and member of Penner's backing band.[85][86] The song "Best I Can" from the film Dina, written and performed by Cera and featuring Sharon Van Etten, was nominated for 'Best Song in a Documentary' at the 2017 Critics' Choice Documentary Awards.[87]
Personal life
Cera has been very private about his personal life.[88] In 2016, Aubrey Plaza made public that the pair had dated for about 18 months after filming Scott Pilgrim vs. the World in 2010 and considered getting married. The two remain friends.[89]
In March 2022, Amy Schumer accidentally revealed that Cera was a father.[88] Later that month, he revealed to Extra that the baby was a six-month-old boy with his German wife Nadine.[90] In a February 2024 appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Cera announced that he and his wife had welcomed a second son.[91]
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