Michael Cera says fame made him ‘paranoid and weird’

In a new interview, Michael Cera has opened up on how earning a massive dollop of fame at the age of 19 turned him 'paranoid and weird'.

While fans of Arrested Development would already have known who he was before the year 2007, the release of movies Juno and Superbad really catapulted Cera to global fame.

In one film he played an awkward teenager who got his friend pregnant while in the other he played an awkward teenager desperate to lose his virginity at an upcoming party.

Since then his career has gone from strength to strength and he's become such a famous figure that he's been able to play himself in a few productions, though getting so famous at such a young age was something he found difficult.

Opening up on becoming incredibly famous as a teenager in an interview with The Guardian, Cera explained that the life of a celebrity wasn't as fun as many might think.

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"That was sort of overwhelming, I didn’t know how to handle walking down the street," he said of becoming one of the most recognisable people in the world before his 20th birthday.

"Fame makes you very uncomfortable in your own skin, and makes you paranoid and weird."

"There were lots of great things about it, and I met a lot of amazing people, but there’s a lot of bad energies, too, ones that I was not equipped to handle."

He went on to say that since he was just 19 he 'didn’t know how to respectfully establish my own boundaries' around people who'd noticed that somebody famous was in their midst.

Cera said that dealing with drunk people was particularly difficult for him as they could be 'very enthusiastic' but also 'toxic'.

He also said that his youth compounded the problem as in his experience people 'feel they can kind of grab you' and that being 'a kid' meant others were 'not that respectful of you or your physical space'.

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Cera said he'd gone to a bar with friends the week Superbad was released in cinemas and soon realised it was a 'mistake' because everyone recognised him.

The actor admitted that for a time he 'wanted to stop taking jobs that would make me more famous' and turned down the chance to host Saturday Night Live as he was 'really not enjoying the level of heat' on him.

"I was kind of having a bit of a crisis," he said.

During the interview, he admitted he was at one point not sure whether he wanted to continue being an actor but got through it thanks to being in the Edgar Wright movie Scott Pilgrim vs the World.

Since then he's been in movies, TV shows and plays aplenty, and has recently starred in an episode of Black Mirror.

Cera is also due to be in the upcoming Barbie movie, which is tipped to be a big hit at the box office, where he'll be playing Allan, a friend of Ken (Ryan Gosling).

While the rest of the Barbie cast has a group chat together Cera isn't part of it because he doesn't own a smartphone.