This is an accepted version of this page Michael Austin Cera (/ˈsɛrə/ SERR-ə; Italian: [ˈtʃeːra]; born June 7, 1988)[1] is a Canadian actor.

Cera became known for portraying leading roles in a string of comedic films such as Superbad (2007), Juno (2007), Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010), Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist (2008), and Youth in Revolt (2009).

[9] In 1999, Cera was cast as Larrabe Hicks in the Canadian children's show I Was a Sixth Grade Alien, which ran for two seasons.

[19] Cera and his Arrested Development co-star Alia Shawkat guest-starred as a pair of college students in the teen noir drama Veronica Mars, in the episode "The Rapes of Graff" in 2006.

[21] In 2007, the pair signed a deal with CBS Television to write, produce, direct, and act in a short-form comedy series entitled Clark and Michael.

[22] In May 2007, Cera appeared in a staged comedy video that shows him being fired from the lead role of the film Knocked Up, after belittling and arguing with its director Judd Apatow, in a scene that mocks the David O. Russell blow up on the set of I Heart Huckabees.

Their characters in the film – two virgin teenagers about to graduate from high school whose party plans go awry – were based on the comedy's writers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg.

[29] For Superbad and Juno, Cera won Breakthrough Artist in the Austin Film Critics Association Awards 2007, and was included in Entertainment Weekly's "30 Under 30" list in February 2008.

[30][31] Cera starred alongside Kat Dennings in the romantic comedy-drama Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist (2008), in which they played two strangers who bond over their shared love of a band and try to find their secret show.

The film's director, Edgar Wright, had seen his work in Arrested Development and believed that Cera was an actor "audiences will still follow even when the character is being a bit of an ass.

[42] Cera made his theater debut in a production of Kenneth Lonergan's play This Is Our Youth in a two-week run during March 2012 at the Sydney Opera House.

The New York Times theater critic Ben Brantley praised Cera for achieving "something remarkable": "the sense of an amorphous being assuming and losing shape in the course of roughly 12 hours".

[45][46] Arrested Development was revived for a fourth season in 2012 by Netflix, with Cera reprising his role as George Michael Bluth.

[49] Along with Reggie Watts, Tim & Eric, and Sarah Silverman, Cera created the web-based comedy YouTube channel Jash in March 2013, where he has posted short films which he directs and/or stars in.

[51][52] These films include the comedy-drama Gregory Go Boom (2013), in which Cera played a paraplegic man, and his directorial debut Brazzaville Teen-Ager (2013), co-starring Charles Grodin as his sick father.

[53][54] He played an exaggerated version of himself in the apocalyptic comedy film This Is the End, which was released in summer of 2013 and featured his Superbad co-stars Jonah Hill and Seth Rogen.

[55] Throughout 2013, Cera also appeared on Burning Love, a web spoof of reality dating competition shows,[56] and on an episode of Drunk History as John Endecott.

[57] Cera appeared with his Arrested Development co-star David Cross' 2014 film Hits, playing a marijuana dealer.

[58] He also co-starred alongside John Hawkes and Sally Hawkins in Charlie Kaufman's television pilot How & Why, which was rejected by FX.

[62] He played a supporting role as a sleazy car salesman in the comedy How to Be a Latin Lover and co-starred in Janicza Bravo's first full-length feature, the comedy-drama Lemon.

He played an actor described as having a "wedge of hair that makes him look like Frédéric Chopin crossed with Eraserhead", by Variety critic Owen Gleiberman.

[68] Cera returned to the stage in March 2018, starring in a second Kenneth Lonergan production, Lobby Hero, at the Helen Hayes Theatre on Broadway.

[81] Cera also played bass and sang back up during songs in both Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist.

"[84] In early 2015, Canadian musician Alden Penner released "Meditate", a track from his upcoming EP Canada in Space, which features Cera.

[88] In 2016, Aubrey Plaza made public that the pair had dated for about 18 months after filming Scott Pilgrim vs. the World in 2010 and considered getting married.

[90] In a February 2024 appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Cera announced that he and his wife had welcomed a second son.