Michael Cera

Michael Austin Cera ( ; ; born June 7, 1988) is a Canadian actor and musician. Over his career, he has received nominations for a British Academy Film Award, three Critics' Choice Movie Awards, four Screen Actors Guild Awards, and a Tony Award. Cera became known for portraying leading roles in a string of comedic films such as Superbad, Juno (2007), Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010), Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist (2008), and Youth in Revolt (2009). He took supporting roles in both comedies and dramas including Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002), This Is the End (2013), Molly's Game (2017), Person to Person (2017), Gloria Bell (2019), Barbie (2023), Dream Scenario (2023) and The Phoenician Scheme (2025). He voiced Dick Grayson / Robin in The Lego Batman Movie (2017).

Cera gained prominence portraying George Michael Bluth in the Fox sitcom Arrested Development (2003–2006; 2013–2019), and took a leading role in the Hulu comedy series Life & Beth (2022–2024). He voiced animated roles including Josh Spitz in Braceface (2001–2004), Brother Bear in The Berenstain Bears (2003–2004), Todd in the Wayside pilot (2005), Barry in Sausage Party (2016) and its Amazon Prime Video sequel series Sausage Party: Foodtopia (2024), Hank in Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank (2022), and reprising his role as Scott Pilgrim in the Netflix series Scott Pilgrim Takes Off (2023). He is also known for his Broadway performances in the Kenneth Lonergan plays This Is Our Youth in 2014, Lobby Hero in 2018, for which he received a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play, and The Waverly Gallery in 2019. In addition to acting, Cera is a musician, having released his debut album True That in 2014. Cera has also performed as the touring bassist for indie rock supergroup Mister Heavenly.

Early life

Cera was born on June 7, 1988, in Brampton, Ontario, a suburb of Toronto. He is the son of Linda (née Cockman) and Luigi Cera, a technician. He is of Sicilian descent through his father. His parents both worked for Xerox. Cera has an older sister, Jordan, and a younger sister, Molly. He became interested in acting after viewing Ghostbusters repeatedly when sick with the chicken pox at the age of three. Cera memorized all the dialogue and idolized Bill Murray. He enrolled in The Second City, Toronto, and took improvisation classes.

Career

1999–2007: Child acting and breakthrough

His first role was an unpaid appearance in a Tim Hortons summer camp commercial. That appearance eventually landed him a position in a Pillsbury commercial, in which he poked the Pillsbury Doughboy and had his first role with lines.

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. That year, he also appeared in the television films What Katy Did and Switching Goals, starring the Olsen twins. The next year Cera made his theatrical film debut in the science fiction film Frequency (2000) as the son of Noah Emmerich's character. Cera appeared in several television films in 2001, including My Louisiana Sky and The Familiar Stranger. He also began voicing Josh Spitz in the animated series Braceface, which he continued until 2004. He provided the voice for Brother Bear – an anthropomorphic bear – in the 2003 The Berenstain Bears animated series, which aired for three seasons.

quote="Arrested Development never felt safe. Even in the first season, we did thirteen episodes, and we thought we'd never do a back nine. So I never thought in a million years we'd get to make three seasons. I was happy we got that far. I thought it was really good, and I'm really proud of it. I don't think we made a bad episode." — —Michael Cera, Esquire (2009) After three seasons, Fox canceled the series in 2006 due to low viewership, although it had received critical acclaim. In 2006, Cera created and starred in a parody of Impossible is Nothing, a video résumé created by Aleksey Vayner. 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.

2007–2013: Further success and stage debut

Along with best friend Clark Duke, Cera wrote and starred in a series of short videos released on their website. 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. The show featured guest stars such as David Cross, Andy Richter and Patton Oswalt, and was distributed via CBS's internet channel, CBS Innertube.

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. Superbad was released in cinemas in August 2007, topping the US box office for two weeks in a row.

Cera's performance was critically acclaimed: The Atlantic reviewer said that the film "belongs to Michael Cera" for capturing "teenage sexual abashment as indelibly as he did in the role of George Michael [on Arrested Development]." The New York Times said that he was "excellent" and CNN praised Cera and Hill for playing "off each other beautifully".

In November 2007, Cera hosted a live, staged version of Saturday Night Live; it was not broadcast due to the ongoing 2007 Writers Guild of America Strike. 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.

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. He starred in the comedy Extreme Movie (2008), which was composed of vignettes focusing on teen sex. Cera held a recurring role on the comedy series Childrens Hospital from 2008 to 2016 as Sal Viscuso, a hospital staffer who is known only by his voice through an intercom.

Cera dressed as Captain America to promote Scott Pilgrim vs. the World at the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con Cera played a fictionalized version of himself in the independent romantic comedy Paper Heart (2009). It explored the fictional relationship between Cera and the film's writer Charlyne Yi, also playing herself. Cera and Yi composed the film's score together. That year Cera starred opposite Jack Black in the comedy Year One, set during the Stone Age. The film, directed by Harold Ramis, was poorly received, although Time magazine critic Mary Pols said that Cera's performance saved the film from being a "catastrophe". In his final film of 2009, Cera starred in Youth in Revolt, an adaptation of the eponymous novel. He played a shy teenager named Nick Twisp who creates a destructive alter ego, François Dillinger, after becoming smitten with a girl, played by Portia Doubleday. Cera had also begun to write. His first published short story, "Pinecone", appeared in McSweeney's Quarterly thirtieth issue in 2009.

Cera was cast as Scott Pilgrim in the film adaptation of the graphic novel series by Bryan Lee O'Malley. 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." The film, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, follows Pilgrim, a musician who must battle the seven evil exes of his girlfriend Ramona (played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead). It was released in cinemas in August 2010. It did poorly at the box office, grossing $47.7 million against a production budget of $85–90 million.

Cera made a guest appearance in "The Daughter Also Rises", a 2012 episode of the animated sitcom The Simpsons, as the voice of Nick, a love interest to Lisa Simpson. He 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 play also featured his Scott Pilgrim co-star Kieran Culkin and actress Tavi Gevinson. A Broadway production at the Cort Theater opened in September 2014 and closed in January 2015. 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". Also in 2012, Cera played a supporting role in the drama The End of Love and appeared in the short film The Immigrant. Arrested Development was revived for a fourth season in 2012 by Netflix, with Cera reprising his role as George Michael Bluth. Cera also worked in the writers' room and served as a consulting producer during its production. The season was released in May 2013.

Cera collaborated with Chilean filmmaker Sebastián Silva on two films in 2013 – Magic Magic and Crystal Fairy & the Magical Cactus – both of which were filmed in Chile and premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. He spent "five hours a day learning Spanish" for Magic Magic. Cera was featured most prominently in Crystal Fairy, in which he starred as a self-absorbed man travelling Chile with a woman named "Crystal Fairy" (played by Gaby Hoffmann) while bearing a cactus. 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. 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. Throughout 2013, Cera also appeared on Burning Love, a web spoof of reality dating competition shows, and on an episode of Drunk History as John Endecott. Cera had previously played Alexander Hamilton in a comedic retelling of Hamilton's duel with Aaron Burr on the show's first episode as a web series in 2008 before it was adapted into a television show.

2013–present

Cera appeared in his Arrested Development co-star David Cross' 2014 film Hits, playing a marijuana dealer. He also co-starred alongside John Hawkes and Sally Hawkins in Charlie Kaufman's television pilot How & Why, which was rejected by FX. After a brief, "menacing" appearance in the drama Entertainment (2015), Cera appeared in the prequel to the 2001 comedy film Wet Hot American Summer, the comedy series Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp and in the Christmas musical comedy film A Very Murray Christmas as Bill Murray's fictional talent agent. Cera then voiced a hot dog trying to escape his fate in a supermarket in the animated comedy Sausage Party (2016). In 2015, Cera made a cameo on Louis C.K.'s Louie on FX, in the season five episode "Sleepover" alongside Glenn Close, John Lithgow, and Matthew Broderick.

Cera had five film releases in 2017, the first of which was the animated superhero comedy The Lego Batman Movie, in which he voiced the Batman's sidekick Robin. Cera starred opposite Abbi Jacobson in the drama Person to Person, focusing on the struggles of different people over the course of one day in New York City. Cera and Jacobson are featured as a pair of crime reporters investigating a possible murder. In his final film of the year, Aaron Sorkin's crime drama Molly's Game, Cera played a celebrity known only as Player X who participates in a high-stakes, underground poker empire run by Molly Bloom (played by Jessica Chastain). Cera's fictional character in the film was said to be a composite character of celebrity poker players and actors Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire and Ben Affleck.

A "giant fan" of director David Lynch, The appearance contained several references to the work of actor Marlon Brando: Wally shares the same birthday and is nicknamed after Brando. Cera and Henry were both nominated for Best Featured Actor in a Play at the 72nd Tony Awards. Cera return to Broadway in October 2018, starring in a third Kenneth Lonergan production, a revival of The Waverly Gallery at the John Golden Theatre on Broadway. Cera took a supporting role as a painter acting alongside Elaine May, Lucas Hedges, and Joan Allen.

Cera co-starred in the 2018 film drama Gloria Bell, with Julianne Moore as the title character. Cera returned to his role as George Michael Bluth in the fifth season of Arrested Development in 2018. In 2021, Cera lent his voice to the adult animated film Cryptozoo. Cera appeared in the 2022 animated comedy Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank about a dog who wishes to become a samurai. In 2023, he starred opposite Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling in the fantasy comedy film Barbie as Allan. In August 2023, he said in an interview he was working on getting financing to direct his first movie, naming an adaptation of Masters of Atlantis by Charles Portis as one of two possible directorial debuts, having narrowly beaten out Clark Duke when first securing the adaptation rights. In 2025, Cera garnered critical acclaim for his performance as Norwegian entomologist Björn Lund in the Wes Anderson film The Phoenician Scheme, which critic Brian Tallerico deemed "his best work to date".

Music

In 2010, Cera contributed mandolin and backing vocals to the Weezer song "Hang On" from their album Hurley. Cera has also established himself as the touring bass player in Mister Heavenly, an indie rock band originating in the American northwest, and is a member of the band The Long Goodbye, along with Clark Duke. Cera also played bass and sang back up during songs in both Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. He released his full-length debut album True That on August 8, 2014, through his official Bandcamp page. The album features 19 original tracks, a cover of Roderick Falconer's "Play It Again" as well as a cover of Blaze Foley's "Clay Pigeons."

In early 2015, Canadian musician Alden Penner released "Meditate", a track from his upcoming EP Canada in Space, which features Cera. Penner subsequently announced that the EP would be released on June 29, 2015, on City Slang records, as well as a European tour of the UK, Netherlands, France, and Germany, which featured Cera as both co-headliner and member of Penner's backing band. The song "Best I Can" from the film Dina, written and performed by Cera and featuring Sharon Van Etten, was nominated for 'Best Song in a Documentary' at the 2017 Critics' Choice Documentary Awards.

Personal life Cera has been very private about his personal life.

Cera is married to a German woman named Nadine, whom he met at a bar in Paris while on a press tour for Arrested Development. In March 2022, Amy Schumer accidentally revealed that Cera was a father. Later that month, he revealed to Extra that the baby was a six-month-old boy. In a February 2024 appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Cera announced that he and his wife had a second son. In his Criterion Closet Picks video (posted on May 30, 2025), Cera shared that his "older son is three and a half". As of August 2023, Cera resides in Brooklyn, New York City.

Filmography

Film Year Title Role Notes 2000 Frequency Gordy Hersch Jr. (Age 10) Steal This Movie! America Hoffman (Age 7–8) Ultimate G's: Zac's Flying Dream Young Zac 2002 Confessions of a Dangerous Mind Chuck Barris (Age 8–11) 2007 Superbad Evan Juno Paulie Bleeker 2008 Extreme Movie Fred Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist Nick O'Leary 2009 Paper Heart Himself Year One Oh Youth in Revolt Nick Twisp / François Dillinger 2010 Scott Pilgrim vs. the Animation Scott Pilgrim Short film; voice Scott Pilgrim vs. the World 2012 The End of Love Michael The Immigrant Michael Short film 2013 Crystal Fairy & the Magical Cactus Jamie Magic Magic Brink Also executive producer Brazzaville Teen-Ager Gunther Short film; also director and writer Failure Man Short film; also director and writer This Is the End Himself Gregory Go Boom Gregory Short film Bitch Himself Short film; also director and writer 2014 Hits Bennie 2015 Entertainment Tommy That Dog Tim Short film A Very Murray Christmas Jackie the Talent Agent 2016 Sausage Party Barry Voice Man Rots from the Head Sydney Ward Short film 2017 Person to Person Phil Lemon Alex The Lego Batman Movie Richard "Dick" Grayson / Robin Voice How to Be a Latin Lover Remy Cooking with Alfred Richard "Dick" Grayson / Robin Voice; Short film Molly's Game Player X 2018 Tyrel Alan Spivak Robby LeBeau Gloria Bell Peter 2021 Cryptozoo Matthew Voice 2022 Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank Hank Voice2023 The Adults Eric Barbie Allan Dream Scenario Trent Under the Boardwalk Armen Voice 2024 Christmas Eve in Miller's Point Officer Gibson Sacramento Glenn 2025 The Phoenician Scheme Bjorn Lund The Running Man Elton Parrakis TBA Love is Not the Answer Filming; also writer, director, producer

Television Year Title Role Notes 1999 Twice in a Lifetime Skateboarder #2 Episode: "The Blame Game" 1999–2001 I Was a Sixth Grade Alien Larrabe Hicks Recurring role 1999 Noddy Butch Episode: "Big Bullies" Switching Goals Taylor Television film What Katy Did Dorry Television film 2000 La Femme Nikita Jerome Episode: "He Came from Four" Anne of Green Gables: The Animated Series Benjamin Voice; Episode: "The Best Partner" 2001 George Shrinks Hurlden Cadwell Voice; Episode: "Speed Shrinks" Doc Max 2 episodes The Ripping Friends Boy Boy/Young Boy Voice; 2 episodes Stolen Miracle Brandon McKinley Television film My Louisiana Sky Jesse Wade Thompson Television film The Familiar Stranger Young Ted Welsh Television film Walter and Henry Crying Kid Television film 2001–2004 Braceface Josh Spitz Voice; Main role 2001–2002 Pecola Robbie Rabbit Voice; Main role 2003–2004 The Berenstain Bears Brother Bear Voice; Main role 2003 Rolie Polie Olie Little Gizmo Voice; 4 episodes 2003–2006;2013–2019 Arrested Development George Michael Bluth Main roleProducer (season 4 and 5) 2005 Wayside Todd Voice; Episode: "Pilot" 2006 Veronica Mars Dean Rudolph Episode: "The Rapes of Graff" Tom Goes to the Mayor Scrotch Voice; Episode: "Undercover" 2007 Clark and Michael Mikey Cera Also co-creator, director, writer, editor and producer Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! Jamie Stevens Episode: "Cats" 2008–2016 Childrens Hospital Sal Viscuso Voice; Recurring role 2012 The Simpsons Nick Voice; Episode: "The Daughter Also Rises" 2012, 2015 Comedy Bang! Bang! Himself 2 episodes 2013 Arcade Fire in Here Comes the Night Time Spanish Bartender Television special Burning Love Wally 6 episodes 2013–2016 Drunk History Various 3 episodes 2014 Saturday Night Live Surrogate Episode: "Jonah Hill/Bastille" How and Why Mendelsohn Pilot 2015 Louie Young Man Episode: "Sleepover" Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp Jim Stansel 3 episodes 2017 Twin Peaks Wally "Brando" Brennan Episode: "Part 4" 2018 The Shivering Truth Delmer Voice; Episode: "Chaos Beknownst" 2019 Weird City Tawny Episode: "A Family"2020 Medical Police Sal Viscuso 3 episodesAt Home with Amy Sedaris Travis Episode: "Valentine's Day" 2022 The Boys Presents: Diabolical Great Wide Wonder Voice; Episode: "I'm Your Pusher" 2022–2024 Life & Beth John Main role 2023 Celebrity Jeopardy! Himself 2 episodes Black Mirror Beppe Episode: "Joan Is Awful" Command Z Kerning Fealty Web series Praise Petey Little Einstein Voice; 2 episodes Scott Pilgrim Takes Off Scott Pilgrim Voice; Main role 2024 Sausage Party: Foodtopia Barry Voice2026Saturday Night Live UKHimselfEpisode: "Tina Fey/Wet Leg"

Theatre Year Title Role Venue Ref. 2012 This Is Our Youth Warren Straub Sydney Opera House 2014 Steppenwolf Theatre Cort Theatre 2018 Lobby Hero Jeff Helen Hayes Theatre The Waverly Gallery Don Bowman John Golden Theatre

Discography Studio albums True That (2014)

Soundtrack Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (2010)