A 15-year-old Scott Pilgrim vs. the World press junket of Anna Kendrick and Kieran Culkin, in which they were put on the spot by a comment about their co-star Michael Cera, recently resurfaced.
The 2010 romantic comedy featured Cera as the titular Scott Pilgrim, an aspiring musician who had to compete against seven evil exes of Ramona Flowers, played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead, to date her.
Highlights
- In a resurfaced 2010 video, Anna Kendrick and Kieran Culkin were seen defending Michael Cera from an interviewer’s awkward question.
- Kendrick and Culkin starred alongside Cera in Edgar Wright’s romantic comedy movie, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.
- The video went viral after Cera’s recent appearance during Tina Fey’s opening monologue on SNL U.K.’s debut episode.
Kendrick played Scott’s younger sister, Stacey Pilgrim, and Culkin played his roommate, Wallace Wells.
“Why is he being such a hater?” one user commented about the interviewer’s question.
Anna Kendrick and Kieran Culkin defended Michael Cera after an interviewer called him “unattractive”
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The video of the interview resurfaced days after Cera, along with Nicola Coughlan and Graham Norton, crashed Tina Fey’s opening monologue in the debut episode of SNL U.K. on March 21.
Cera, who wore glasses and a striped shirt, was seated in the audience and asked Fey a joke question about why she swore during her speech.
Some fans were happy to see Cera back on screen, however briefly. One fan said: “Wow. That’s so crazy. Michael Cera is alive.”
Image credits: Universal Pictures
Following Cera’s appearance on SNL U.K., fans began combing through his media appearances over the years, with one in particular going viral for a completely unrelated reason to Cera's talent or career.
A 15-second clip of Kendrick and Culkin talking about Cera in their 2010 interview caught netizens’ attention for the interviewer’s bizarre question.
“By rights, he should be really unattractive,” the interviewer said during the media session. “What is it that makes him into some sort of s*x magnet?” he asked Kendrick and Culkin, referring to Cera’s character.
Image credits: Universal Pictures
In Bryan Lee O'Malley's graphic novel series, from which the movie was adapted, Scott is a reasonably attractive guy, who, for all his flaws, is unusually popular with women.
In response, Kendrick and Culkin looked completely stunned.
“Unattractive?” Culkin asked, while Kendrick remained speechless.
“I mean, look at him,” the interviewer said, doubling down. “He’s a nerd, a beanpole of a man.”
This made Kendrick burst out laughing, while Culkin took a look at the movie poster and returned, “I think he’s cute.”
“I like a good beanpole,” Kendrick chimed in at this point, which made the interviewer go, “Really?”
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While interviewing Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Ellen Wong, who played Knives Chau, the interviewer made a similar comment: “He looks like a bit of a dweeb, doesn’t he? I mean Brandon Routh, and Michael Cera gets the girl?”
Winstead defended Cera, saying: “I think he’s pretty bada*s.”
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In another press junket from that time, conducted by Digital Spy, Kendrick revealed that some fans at the comic book conventions they had attended wanted to know Michael Cera’s relationship status.
“They were so cool and genuinely interested… They had really interesting and intelligent questions,” Kendrick said. “It wasn’t just the people who were there to see Michael and asked questions about whether Michael Cera was single.”
Netizens called out the interviewer for his Michael Cera comments
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Most slammed the interviewer for his question, while others praised Kendrick and Culkin for defending their co-star.
One user said, “Wait, this must be a joke/prank, is he being for real?! Cause that’s so insane.” Another person wrote, “I think the interview is projecting his own insecurities here.”
“The way their faces both dropped,” one said. “They were taken aback.”
“I love the sheer baffled look on Kieran’s face,” another echoed.
One person said: “I think this is a demonstration of how men feel under patriarchy, they are made to believe the only way to be attractive is big and muscled or whatever, but they’re really the ones holding themselves up to that standard, no one else!”
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Another, who thought the reporter looked similar to Cera, wrote: “That interviewer looks like he comes from a similar beanpole gene pool. Your honor, he’s projecting.”
“He had it out for him,” said one more.
Michael Cera admitted to struggling with self-confidence as a kid
Image credits: Vince Bucci/Getty Images
In October 2018, Cera had a heart-to-heart conversation with his Superbad co-star, Jonah Hill, for the latter’s indie magazine, Inner Children.
During the interview, Hill asked Cera if he had a version of himself that he tried to hide from the world.
Image credits: Jon Furniss/Getty Images
“My immediate answer would honestly be the 11-year-old version of me, just struggling with self-confidence,” Cera answered. “Even though there’s no real reason I could point to.”
“I had a lot of friends, and they all loved me and everything. It was great. You’re just figuring it out and trying to learn who you are as you keep changing radically.”
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He shared that pursuing what he truly wanted in his career was “very challenging” in his teens and early twenties, and that things did not click into place until he was 27.
Cera has been acting since he was 10 and starred in Superbad alongside Hill when he was 19.
Image credits: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images
“If I think back to myself in my teenage years, it’s alarming,” he added. “I have this footage of us from the Superbad press tour and even watching that and looking at myself when I was like 19, it’s really disturbing.”
“It was very weird,” Cera said about handling his early fame in his 20s. “I was so unsure, and there was nothing that made a lot of sense to me about the way my life was configured.”
"He's so jealous." Netizens shared their thoughts on the interviewer's question about Michael Cera
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