From geek to teen heart-throb

The latest nerd-on-the-block is Jay Baruchel, who stars in the romantic comedy, She's Out of My League. The Canadian-born actor plays what is described as a "hard 5" who meets a blond bombshell, "perfect 10", played by newcomer, British actress Alice Eve.

She's Out of My League follows the latest phenomenon in which actors like Seth Rogen, or Michael Cera, whose sexually unthreatening appeal would have once put them in the "lovable loser" category have now reached the unlikely status of "teen heart-throb".

How does this 27-year-old, self-described geek feel about his new rank?

"Awesome! Things are really looking up," he laughs. "I mean, it can't hurt. It's only good news for me that nerds are now the cool guys."

A working actor since the age of 12 (in the TV series Are You Afraid of the Dark) Baruchel was recently seen in the hit blockbuster Tropic Thunder.

Other movies include Knocked Up, and Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist. He has a couple of very high-profile movies coming up - playing the apprentice in The Sorcerer's Apprentice, and voicing the lead in the Dreamworks Animation feature How To Train Your Dragon.

"I'm terrified about this year," he laughs nervously. "I'm definitely staying indoors a lot more now."

Going against the trend, Baruchel puts his personal life before career and refuses to move to Los Angeles. "If it's one thing I'm stubborn about, it's moving. I bought a house two blocks from my mum in Montreal and I live with two of my best friends, who I've known since I was 15.

"Not to take anything away from LA, but it's just not for me. Staying in Montreal keeps me sane. And it costs way less," he says.

But does it hinder his career in any way? "If someone wants to find me they know where I am. And seriously, if it means I couldn't have a career in acting by staying in Montreal, then I would have chosen another career."

Now that Baruchel is hitting the big time, his family is reaping the benefits. "I'm putting my sister through university and I'm sending my mother on many vacations," he says. And what about him? Any snazzy sports car parked in his driveway? "I have a really sweet TV," he says.

His co-star, Alice Eve, is also on the rise and will next appear in the highly anticipated Sex and the City 2. Too terrified to say much about her upcoming role (for fear she lands herself in trouble with the producers), she does say, "I play an Irish nanny who the character of Charlotte hired. But that's all I can say."

Like many films of its genre, She's Out of My League comes with a memorable gross-out moment or two. Says Baruchel, "Well, yeah, I'm hoping my mother will still be proud of me when she watches the movie. It's not the kind of thing you want your parents to see, especially sitting next to you in the theatre. I told her not to come to the premiere."

This marks the directorial debut of Jim Field Smith, a writer who comes from a TV and sketch comedy background in Britain, and has obviously taken a page from Judd Apatow's relationship with Seth Rogen. He plans to continue working with his "muse" Baruchel, and says, "Jay's awesome," he says. "I have some things in mind."

It's an age-old philosophical argument of the unlikely attraction between "beauty and the beast".

Says Field Smith, "It's unfair that the marketing has latched on to this rating system of him being a 5 and Alice a 10, because I feel that Jay is a good-looking guy in a quirky kind of way. He's by no means ugly. There are thousands of girls who find him very attractive."

Regardless of the hotly-debated appeal of Baruchel, he is arguably in an enviable position in the mainstream Hollywood landscape. "It's difficult to get my head around. I'm an odd bird. I feel I'm forever the outsider, but maybe that's a good thing."

Despite his feelings of not fitting in with the perceived cool crowd, Baruchel says he's never felt out of anyone's league. "Maybe I have an unwarranted sense of self-confidence. My mother raised me to think of myself as a real catch," he laughs. "I believed the line of bullshit she fed me since I was a kid and although I got rejected plenty of times, I was always like, 'they'd do well to go with me'.

"But, as I say, this confidence is perhaps not always warranted."

LOWDOWN

Who: Jay Baruchel
What he's been in: Knocked Up (2007), Tropic Thunder (2008), Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (2008), Night at the Museum 2 (2009)
When and where: How to Train Your Dragon and She's Out of My League are at cinemas now.