Michael Cera has recalled an awkward encounter in which he was introduced to Jackie Chan, only for the Karate Kid star to not know who he was.
The 36-year-old Arrested Development actor arrived at BBC Radio 2 in London to promote his latest project, Wes Anderson’s ThePhoenician Scheme, when he was told that Chan, 71, was down the hallway doing press for his new movie, The Karate Kid: Legends.
Cera toldNMEthat a photographer offered to introduce him to the Rush Hour actor – but the interaction resulted in Chan thinking Cera was a fan who had won a competition.
“[The photographer] asked if I knew Jackie Chan, which I don’t, so she said ‘come meet him’. That was that,” Cera explained.
“When I met him, though, he was like ‘who is this person, what's going on?’”
Cera added: “We took a picture but I think he thought I was a competition winner. He was like, ‘OK let's do a picture real quick. Come on.’”
The Superbad actor said that Chan was “not rude”, but that Cera felt like he was “invading his little personal time with his team before he goes on the radio”.
ThePhoenician Scheme stars Benicio Del Toro as international tycoon Zsa-zsa Korda, who decides to make his daughter, a nun named Liesl (Mia Threapleton), the heir to his estate. Cera plays Liesl’s Norwegian tutor Bjørn Lund.
Speaking about shooting the film, Cera said that he arranged for an electric piano to be installed in the lobby of the hotel where the cast were staying, because he wanted “some musical atmosphere”.
He added that the actor John Patrick Walter, the husband of Hope Davis (who plays Mother Superior in the film), would lead sing-alongs to Beatles songs in the lobby.
However, Cera said that the director’s editing suite was nearby, and they would receive noise complaints from Anderson’s team.
“Occasionally, someone would come out while he was working and tell us ‘no music right now.’”
In The Independent’s four-star review of the movie, Geoffrey Macnab called it one of the director’s most enrapturing films in years.
He wrote: “Each scene contains something to savour – a goofy visual gag, some deadpan dialogue or the use of a surprising prop (for instance, the grenades that Korda gives to guests as treats). This, then, is everything you expect from a Wes Anderson film. If you like his work, you’ll love it.”
Chan recently reprised his role as Mr Han for the new Karate Kid: Legends movie, 15 years after he starred in 2010’s The Karate Kid with Jaden Smith.
The film follows kung fu prodigy Li Fong, who moves to New York with his widowed mother and enters the ultimate karate competition with the help of Mr Han and Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio).
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