Michael Cera

Born on June 7, 1988 in Ontario, Canada, Michael Cera's career started in Canadian children's TV doing voiceover work for cartoons as well as live action comedies. His first major role in the U.S. was in the hit comedic show Arrested Development. From there, Cera's career began to skyrocket, as Hollywood realized this guy was good at playing characters with an almost Charlie Brown-esque tone to them, and as the saying goes, "que Cera, Cera."

As a side note, he apparently liked the fight training he went through to prepare for Scott Pilgrim vs. the World so much that he's now studying martial arts for real. You have been warned.


 * Arrested Development: George-Michael Bluth
 * The Berenstain Bears: Brother Bear
 * Braceface: Josh Spitz, Sharon's younger brother.
 * Childrens Hospital: The PA announcer.
 * Juno: Paulie Bleeker
 * Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist: Nick
 * Youth in Revolt: Nick Twisp and Francois Dillinger
 * Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: Scott Pilgrim
 * Superbad: Evan


 * Prancing Cera.
 * The Michael Cera School of Acting


 * Adorkable
 * Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Yeah, he looks like a stiff wind could blow him over, but you know all that fight training he undertook for Scott Pilgrim vs. the World? Yeah... he decided he liked martial arts so much that he continued it afterward. He's a black belt now.
 * Hipster: Related to his Typecasting -- of the works in the "Film" section on the trope page, he's in three.
 * I Am Not Leonard Nimoy: Partially as a result of Typecasting causing him to play practically the same character in every film.
 * Older Than They Look: He doesn't seem to have aged at all since Arrested Development started.
 * Only So Many Canadian Actors: Avoided. The first and thus far only Toronto-based production he's been in was Scott Pilgrim.
 * Poor Man's Substitute: At first, Jesse Eisenberg could probably be considered his poor man's substitute, but now it's almost reversed, with Eisenberg getting nominated for an Oscar for The Social Network.
 * Typecasting: Literally every single one of his characters is a socially awkward teen/young adult who has trouble talking to girls. Even in Year One where he played a caveman he was still a nerd with a crush on a girl who's out of his league. On the other hand, there is Youth in Revolt, where he plays a lovelorn awkward teenager who takes on a diametrically opposite alter-ego, both taken to comedic extremes.
 * What Could Have Been: He was supposed to be brought for the third season of Veronica Mars but was unavailable. The character who replaced him was revealed to be part of the rape plot which could have been some nice Playing Against Type for Cera.