Barbie and Ken and….Allan?
Michael Cera plays a revived version of the famed plastic couple’s forgotten, unglamorous third wheel — on exactly zero young girls’ Christmas lists — in the upcoming ‘Barbie’ film.
But to hear the actor talk, a role as the odd man out may be right up his alley.
While the Canadian-born actor has been a household name for nearly 15 years with memorable roles in “Arrested Development,” “Superbad” and “Juno,” all that fame at an early age nearly ran him out of the business, Cera, now 35, told The Guardian.
“There was a point [at 19] where I wanted to stop taking jobs that would make me more famous,” Cera confessed, in a freewheeling interview about saying no to smartphones, fatherhood and being overwhelmed by early fame.
“I didn’t know how to handle walking down the street,” the “Scott Pilgrim” actor said of life in his late teens. “Fame makes you very uncomfortable in your own skin, and makes you paranoid and weird.”
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Cera described going out to a bar the weekend that “Superbad” — an R-rated high-school comedy that became an instant classic — was released.
“It was a mistake,” Cera said of the experience. “It was like a burning feeling the whole time, just like everybody was so aware of me.”
While he was effortlessly inhabiting the awkward teen roles that still mark his most recognizable performances, off-screen he was becoming equally self-conscious.
Following this period, Cera took an intentional step back from the limelight.
He shocked his agents by turning down a gig hosting SNL and even suggested that, before starting Edgar Wright’s 2010 “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,” Cera “really didn’t know whether [he] was going to keep being an actor.”
“I think I wanted to be a working actor who can enjoy my day-to-day life, and the world I’ve created for myself,” Cera reflected. “I think that was the overall thing I was trying to figure out.”
