Spotlight

Jay Baruchel stands on guard for thee

You may recognize Jay Baruchel from his starring role on the Judd Apatow TV series Undeclared, or as Seth Rogen’s friend who peeks into the delivery room in Knocked Up. Next month, he’ll share the screen with Ben Stiller and Robert Downey Jr. as part of Tropic Thunder’s motley troupe of actors.

Big roles. So why did the 26-year-old Ottawa-born, Montreal-raised actor sign up for this month’s Just Buried, a little Halifax-shot black comedy about an awkward loser who inherits a funeral home? 

“Basically, I’m happiest when I’m in Canada,” Baruchel says over the phone from the Pittsburgh set of his next big pic, She’s Out of My League. “[Just Buried] is the marriage of my two favourite things, movies and the best country in the world.” 

Yet another Canuck actor pandering to the hometown crowd? Well, Baruchel may actually mean it. This guy still lives in Montreal, sharing an apartment with two friends he’s known since they were 15. He hates L.A. (“it’s too hot, nobody walks anywhere”), and if he’s away from Montreal for more than two months, suffers acute homesickness, an illness that has left a permanent mark in the fom of a maple leaf tattoo over his heart. 

“I got that about five years ago in one of my more homesick moments,” Baruchel confirms. “I went down to a tattoo parlour in L.A., gave them my passport and told them to trace the maple leaf.”

Baruchel may be a junior member of Apatow’s posse and Stiller’s Brat Pack, and is “truly honoured to be a part of either,” although admits he finds comedy “a bit too cliquish.” 

Then he adds, “At the same time, it’s hard to believe I’m part of any clique when I’m at home on the couch in Montreal playing videogames, and the cat is puking on the floor next to me.”