Working in an office you learn to accept an institutionalised routine. You'll email, drink coffee, and stare into the middle-distance at pretty much the same time each day until you retire. That's how it works. That's how we work.
In this environment, it's natural to get distracted by the hyper-glamorous lives of the Hollywood stars just a mouse click away. These people (we imagine) have broken free of the constraints of a daily routine. They are living a life we can only dream of.
In those moments I find it reassuring to think of those that live the "dream" but are still stuck in a rut. In this regard, alt-culture funny boy Michael Cera is a huge help. The star of Superbad, Juno and the soon-to-be-released Nick And Norah's Infinite Playlist, Cera makes me feel a whole lot better about my office life because, based on the perma-adolescent's output to date, I can imagine that his working day is just as repetitive and predictable as mine sometimes is.
A model scenario. I'm working in London, Mike's filming in New York (where Nick and Norah, in which Cera and co-star Kat Dennings scour the city for a secret show by a fictional band, Fluffy, was shot). Come 14:00 GMT, I'm on my first coffee of the afternoon. Cera will have arrived on set and got his vulnerable geek look ready for another workout. 15:00: I'm idly sorting my emails, Cera's getting unfairly emasculated by his love interest. 17:00: I'm regularly checking the clock and he's finally sticking up for himself, albeit in a way cute enough to maintain his reputation as "an unbelievably sweet ... honest and sincere" guy amongst intelligent, beautiful women everywhere. By the time I'm headed home he'll be hauling out a guitar and giving it some indie over the closing credits.
Of course, plenty of actors have mannerisms they fall back on. But Cera fell back on his during his superb turn as George Michael Bluth in Arrested Development and he's been lying there, doing nothing, ever since. Nick, Superbad's Evan and Juno's Paulie Bleeker are all basically George, albeit with the occasional tic thrown in.
Am I jealous? Certainly. I'll never inspire the level of devotion that Cera does. But that's outweighed by far by the comfort that his predictability offers because if he doesn't need to change it up then neither do I. Screw a challenge. Ambition be damned. Me and Mike will both be back for more of the same tomorrow.
