He's a baby-faced 18-year-old with a stand-up comic’s talent for a wicked one-liner. He’s also one of the hottest teen actors in showbiz. Meet Michael Cera, a Hollywood star in the making. Before it got cancelled earlier this season, Cera spent three years on Arrested Development, the Ron Howard-directed and narrated dysfunctional family sitcom that made Married With Children look like Full House.

His TV credits also include Veronica Mars, La Femme Nikita and Mad TV, and he appeared in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, his big-screen debut starring Sam Rockwell and Drew Barrymore. Even the preschool set isn’t immune to his charms: his voice pops up on the kiddie cartoons Rolie-Polie-Olie and Berenstain Bears. Cera has several favourite places, but he still holds a soft spot in his heart for southern Ontario.

“I love it here at home in Toronto. My dad still works here. My sisters are here. It’s been a really nice place to grow up. I’m in Brampton, just outside of the actual city of Toronto. When I was doing [Arrested Development], I was in Toronto for about half the year and then half the year in L.A., but now I just fly to L.A. for auditions and meetings, things like that.

“When I’m in Ontario, I try to see friends. We go to the movies a lot, and we go to each other’s houses a lot. The group of friends I hang out with, they all play poker and they’re all into this pop-country stuff, that glossy-sounding country music. I like the old stuff—Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan, when he was doing the Nashville Skyline stuff—but the new country, it’s all sweeping Brampton in a frenzy.

“All my 17- and 18-year-old friends, I don’t know how they can relate to this stuff about losing their wife and losing their job. I just can’t relate to it. Weezer’s mainly my whole listening selection, and the Beatles. I went out and bought the album Rubber Soul, and that really got me hooked on the Beatles.

“Sometimes we’ll all go to a drive-in in Oakville. I think it’s called the 5 Drive-in. It was only $9 for a ticket to see three movies. I stayed awake, but it was a long time. We saw Scary Movie 4 and Lucky Number Slevin, with Morgan Freeman and Bruce Willis. It was better than I expected.

“We took about six cars full of friends. The theatre was pretty packed. If you lived in Oakville, I bet it would be a regular place to go.

“When I stay in L.A. for a long period of time, I really miss it here in Ontario. There’s something about living [in L.A.] that makes you kind of jaded. But when I’m here, I miss the weather and all the people that I know in L.A. Going back and forth, you get the best of both worlds.”

photo: Ibshopgirl