Cera's best known for playing a particular type of teen character, and so getting to don Francois' moustache and attitude was a refreshing change. "I was really excited to get to play that part and I had a lot of fun doing it," said Cera at the film's LA press day. "It was really fun to get to do that with [director] Miguel [Arteta] and figure it out."
"It was just fun to get to wear contacts, put a mustache on, transform how I looked, just say really gross things and smoke. I had a lot of fun things to do with actors that I really admire, too. It was fun to have a scene with Ray Liotta, where I had a challenging moment with him. There were just a lot of really fun scenes and things to do and say."
Francois is totally opposite the type of character we're accustomed to seeing Cera play. But Cera says most of what we see on screen came from just trying to capture, as closely as possible, how Payne wrote the character. "I was inspired by Malcolm McDowell and James Cagney a little bit, but mostly we just tried to make it feel like how it did in the book and feel it out on set as we went."
Bringing Youth in Revolt to the Big Screen
Cera read Youth in Revolt: The Journals of Nick Twisp several times and, like millions of other people, he's a fan. "It was sent to me with the script when I was 16, and I just really loved it and was trying to be a part of it for a long time," revealed Cera. "It was one of those movies that kept getting pushed back and I was worried that, by the time it was being made, I would not be able to play the part. But, I just always asked about it and always wanted to be a part of it."Asked if there was anything from the book that didn't make the film that he wished would have, Cera replied, "There’s a scene that’s a great scene in the book, and we did it word for word and it didn’t make it in just for time, but I think it will be on the DVD. It’s a scene where Francois and Trent [Jonathan Bradford Wright] have a phone call, and we took it word for word from the book. It’s a really great scene. There were a lot of characters that couldn’t make it into the movie. It would have been great to include them all, but it would have been a nine-hour movie. Some day it should be a mini-series. They should redo it and use everything from the book."
Up Next: Scott Pilgrim vs the World
Cera's also starring in another big comedy set to hit theaters in 2010 – Scott Pilgrim vs the World. Scott Pilgrim is an action comedy based on the graphic novels by Bryan Lee O'Malley and directed by Edgar Wright, best known for helming Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz."We had a lot of training on that movie, and had a lot of time to get to hang out with each other and prepare for it," said Cera on his Scott Pilgrim experience.
And Cera said it didn't require much of an adjustment to go from Youth in Revolt to Scott Pilgrim. "You just jump in and do it. There were sometimes things where you’d have a shot that was just for one line, so it wasn’t like you’d run a whole scene. That was different. But, for the most part, you’d just have to let go and go with it."
As for what we can expect from the action in Scott Pilgrim, Cera – who went through a lot of training in order to prepare for the role – said there are lots of cool fights throughout the film. "There’s an amazing fight between Mae Whitman and Mary Elizabeth Winstead where they’re using these weapons, and it’s really amazingly done. And there are some other things, like battles with music in it and the sword-fighting. There’s all sorts of different things."
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Youth in Revolt hits theaters on January 8, 2010.
