Jay Baruchel: "Tropic's" Straight Man

Funny, cute, nerd-ish actor/comedian Jay Baruchel, a native of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, played one of Seth Rogen's crazy buddies in Knocked Up and will appear soon in the long-awaited "Star Trek" fan send-up Fanboys and the new romantic comedy She's Out of My League. Now, catch Jay as a newbie movie star in a Vietnam-era war film surrounded by wacky, seasoned pros in the action comedy Tropic Thunder.

Jay looked very young and hip for our interview wearing a tilted, red "Canada" baseball cap, jeans and a black tee reading "Love Will Tear Us Apart", referring to the song by classic English rock band Joy Division. We wondered how the young actor survived working with several comic geniuses and Oscar-winner Robert Downey Jr.

TeenHollywood: How weird is it to be kind of a straight guy to all these crazy actors?

Jay: Yeah, it's so strange. As a fan of all of them, it made that job so much easier. Some difficult parts were ruining hours of usable film because I was laughing at what they were saying. I basically had to be the audience essentially and the voice of reason. I just tired my best to just not step on them and maybe, if there was a moment, try to be a bit funny myself.

TeenHollywood: How did you get along with all the guys in the movie? Did you hang out off-set?

Jay: No matter what, I'll sound like a cliche but I did make so many good friends. It was weird. I'd spend countless hours in Jack [Black's] trailer watching TV with him or playing video games or just chillin' or go over to his house and watch Road Warrior or something. Then Brandon Jackson, his trailer was literally right next to mine and we spent the bulk of our free time together. Then, I became pretty close with Ben [Stiller] as well.

TeenHollywood: He's both acting and directing in this film. Was he a fun director or rough on you?

Jay: He knew, clearly, what a film nerd I was so when he was setting up shots, he would constantly bring me over to video village or on the little mini-monitor he had so he could set up shots that he was in, he would let me stand over his shoulder and show me, just because he knew how cool I thought everything was. So, he would constantly let me know what the shots were and show me stuff that had nothing to do with my job just because he knew that I got a kick out of it. So, I got along with all of them really well.

TeenHollywood: You looked pretty convincing carrying your gun in the film and I don't think you've been action-boy before. Did you do gun training for this and how heavy were they?

Jay. Yeah, a little and they were real 'M-16's'. It wasn't as heavy as I thought it would be. I was a little boy once so I played cops and robbers and G.I. Joe so it literally was like I could pay my rent by playing cops and robbers. That stuff was the easiest. The weapons stuff was the most fun.

TeenHollywood: Are you like your character Sandusky? When you go into a film project, you are the most prepared guy around or....?

Jay: [laughs] Not even close. The similarity, for me, is I am a wealth of useless information like the Blu-Ray riff [in the film]. There is a scene where I just talk about the battle between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. That's literally in there because Ben heard me talking about that one day. There's other versions of that scene where I went on a riff about how underrated [director] Renny Harlan is and stuff like that. That's the stuff that's me. I am just a film nerd. That's all I do with my time.

TeenHollywood: You have a line where you say that your character is still a virgin so do you think Sandusky gets in this movie then goes to some club in L.A. and gets well, some action?

Jay: No one knows who the hell he is! I don't imagine he does. I don't imagine anyone gives a s**t. [I'd say that] he waits in line and doesn't get in then goes to Carl's Junior.

TeenHollywood: Awwww, poor Sandusky! How much stuff do you have in the fake mockumentary that will be online and on the DVD?

Jay: A fair bit. In one of the scenes that didn't make it into the cut there's a big old party scene where I tell [Steve] Coogan how grateful I am that he hired me. I'm still living off the residuals from an anti-herpes medication commercial I did years ago. So, the documentary contains said commercial and shows a bit of Sandusky's boot camp experiences, getting beaten in the face with a bamboo stick and being tied up in the bushes. So, yes. I'll be in there.

TeenHollywood: Did anything funny happen on set between scenes or during filming?

Jay: The water buffalo figures prominently in the movie. She's a great animal. Bertha, her name was. Somehow the trainers didn't know that Bertha was nine months pregnant and she gave birth during the filming and they named it Baby Jack. There is a scene where they had Jack Black tied to her and one of the rules was just 'don't run behind her. She'll get scared and start running'. And I had to walk her. I'm pulling her on the and someone ran behind her real quick. She got spooked and threw Jack off her shoulders. Jack went flying into a generator! And, in the same split second, she wheels over and just head butts me with her horns and I end up in the bushes.

TeenHollywood: Don't mess with the pregnant women!

Jay: Oh yeah. Oh my God. Hell hath no fury like a water buffalo scorned!

TeenHollywood: You did "Undeclared" and "Freaks and Geeks" on TV and both have a big cult following. Since they never really had any resolutions, is there any chance in the future Judd [Apatow] film to have a couple of cameos of any of the characters?

Jay: Nothing would make me happier. Personally, I've been wanting to do the "Undeclared" movie since it ended. Clearly we're too old to be in university anymore but I think it could be interesting to see what we're all up to in our 20-somethings. I would assume that, no matter what, the same people keep appearing in all of [Judd Apatow's] stuff so I think inevitably, that will happen. But, he'll have to answer that. Nothing would make me happier.

TeenHollywood: Speaking of "Freaks and Geeks", what were you like in high school?

Jay: I went to a fine arts school so there are neither freaks nor geeks there. Everybody is both. The things I liked I excelled at. I was real good at English and Drama and everything else I was terrible at. I had barely 60 percent in everything just so I wouldn't fail. I did the old sailing through Math and Science and all that. I was kind of a big mouth so I guess I was something of the clown or whatever. This was in Montreal.

TeenHollywood: Let's talk Fanboys actually coming out. It's been years since we first heard about that film!

Jay: Yeah. Let's see what happens. I'll believe it when I see it. It's been almost three years and a myriad of directors and versions. I've been saying it's like the Sword of Damocles hanging over my head for the better part of three years.

TeenHollywood: They did re-shoots. How much did they actually re-shoot?

Jay: Yeah, we did re-shoot a fair bit actually and I think they ended up going back to the original story which is awesome that we went through all of that two years after the fact on two different occasions [for nothing]. I have not seen the latest version so I can't actually tell you how much of the re-shoots made it in but I know there was a time when they were trying to remove a pretty important, sizeable part of the plot out of it and finding a way to re-shoot their way through that.

TeenHollywood: It's the project that will never end.

Jay: No, never.

TeenHollywood: Can you talk about who you play in the romantic comedy She's Out of My League?

Jay: I am the "My", basically. She is a girl called Alice Eve, an English actress. I play a TSA guy. I work at the X-Ray machine at the airport in Pittsburgh and through happenstance, she leaves her I-Phone by accident and I come to bring it to her and the romantic comedy develops. She's infinitely better looking and more attractive than I am. I think it's going to be a really funny movie. Pittsburgh's never looked this beautiful. Why are you laughing? I'm trying to be serious. It's an amazing town. I didn't understand when I got there, the reputation that it has but it's a beautiful, beautiful, amazing town and the people are lovely. Gorgeous hills. It's got the most bridges of any city in the world. It has the prettiest ballpark in America. There's a million different wonderful things about it.

TeenHollywood: Nice airport.

Jay: [laughing] The airport, yeah. Well, I was there for weeks on end. There is nothing more fun than going through all those security checkpoints and not getting to fly anywhere.

TeenHollywood: Did you have to research with real TSA guys?

Jay: Well, I mean, come one, honestly? No offense to TSA but really, it's not the Navy Seals.

TeenHollywood: We see you have on a classic rock t-shirt. What kind of music are you into and do you play an instrument?

Jay: Yeah. I've played drums since I was fourteen. I've played synthesizer for the better part of the last five or six years. I play drums in a band. I play synthesizer, I guess it's a band. Well, it's me. I just make music that I listen to when I play videogames or make heavy stuff to listen to while I'm lifting weights or playing videogames. I know it's hard to believe that I lift weights but sometimes I do or do push-ups or something.

TeenHollywood: Who do you listen to when you are just kicking back?

Jay: I really like Joy Division and New Order and my favorite band of all time is a band from Montreal called God Speed You Black Emperor and I like My Bloody Valentine a fair bit. Around right now, I quite like a guy from France called M-83 and his new album is really, really nice. It depends what mood I'm in or how pissed off I am.

TeenHollywood: How does your career look to you right now?

Jay: It beats a poke in the face. Look, I've been at it since I was twelve years old; six years in Canadian children's television, essentially, relative obscurity as far as America is concerned. Then, I've been acting out here basically since I was eighteen. I've ebbed and flowed and had heat and momentum and still don't actually understand what those entail. The only thing one can do is try to be consistent. I just try to do things that I would like to see. Do stuff that I would enjoy doing. Is it going to be a worthwhile way to spend my time? Am I going to enjoy showing up for work every day for four months or whatever? My family is taken care of. The rent's paid. I can buy cat food and I still have money to have a nice TV and I get to live at home in Montreal. I got no complaints.

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Lynn Barker is a Hollywood-based entertainment journalist and produced screenwriter.