Baruchel favours familiar haunts over hotspots
Last Updated: Thursday, September 16, 2010 | 3:10 PM ET
The Canadian Press
Jacob Tierney's Good Neighbours is an unsettling thriller about strange people living in the same apartment building in Montreal's Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighbourhood. The film stars, from left, Scott Speedman, Emily Hampshire and Jay Baruchel. (TIFF)Stargazing at the Toronto International Film Festival usually involves hanging out at chic nightclubs, top-notch restaurants or trendy boutiques in the city's most posh enclaves — unless you're looking for Jay Baruchel.
In that case, you're better off hanging out at McDonald's.
In town last year to promote the teen activist flick The Trotsky, Baruchel came to interviews armed with a super-sized soda from the ubiquitous fast-food chain. And this week, here for his Montreal-set noir Good Neighbours, he was again spotted under the Golden Arches.
"I promise there won't be any Jay spottings at an exclusive nightclub," the affable actor said during an interview this week.
"We've all got our crosses to bear, my friend. We've all got our vices. And I just, I'm a Philistine when it comes to food. When I'm in a situation like this, where it's outside of my comfort zone of control, a little Egg McMuffin will do you some good, you know what I mean?
"It's comfort food, man. It's my security blanket."
That the Montreal native is still indulging in a fast food breakfast menu might surprise those who have followed his steep ascent in Hollywood.
Good Neighbours is his fourth film of 2010, with his first three — the smash 3D animated film How to Train Your Dragon, The Sorcerer's Apprentice and She's Out of Your League — racking up roughly $311 million in combined North American grosses.
Jay Baruchel, seen at the Toronto International Film Festival on Tuesday, says it's a tradition to bring his mom to TIFF each year. (Chris Young/Canadian Press)Yet the star clings to normalcy. He still lives in the same Montreal neighbourhood where he grew up (Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, where Good Neighbours is set), he boasts on this day that he's wearing a shirt he's had since he was 18 (he's now 28) and he still pals around with his old buddies.
He also still brings his mom, Robyne, with him to the Toronto film festival.
"It's like a tradition," he explains, noting that his mother is just outside in the hall. "Mom and I get on the Via Rail [in] Montreal, we get to the train station, walk across to the Royal York, she gets her big pot of tea, writes her room service thing, hangs it on the door, gets breakfast in bed, comes and sees famous people and it's always a fun thing."
"Last night, we were at this awards ceremony and Gordon Pinsent kissed her hand and today, James Caan held the door open for her. And she's like, 'Twice, twice Keanu [Reeves] was walking in front of me!' So she's just like — that's my favourite part of the festival."
But his mom wasn't going to join Baruchel for the opening screening of Good Neighbours on Tuesday night.
'Do I look like Jake Gyllenhaal? If you want, I could tell you his workout regime. I had to hear about it for half an hour — half an hour I'll never get back.'—Jay Baruchel
Directed by Jacob Tierney, who also helmed The Trotsky, Good Neighbours is an intense thriller with some grisly scenes that Baruchel thought were a "wee bit" too disturbing to watch next to his mom.
"She's been banned from the screening," he says with a smile. "I have no problem with her watching it at some point, but just not beside me. So actually I scored her a DVD."
"She'll be watching it in her hotel room."
Though Baruchel laments that his career demands that he spend an increasing amount of time away from Montreal, he's thrilled to continue working in Canada — often in his own neighbourhood.
But surely, as his roles grow more demanding and his films more costly and high-profile, he has been forced through the rigours of a diet and exercise plan to help him overcome his fast-food demons?
"I think we both know the answer to that question," responds the wiry actor with a grin.
"Do I look like Jake Gyllenhaal? If you want, I could tell you his workout regime. I had to hear about it for half an hour — half an hour I'll never get back.
"No, no, as I approach 30 ... I can't eat [junk] every day. I …asked [friends], 'Will I have to cut this out completely?' My friends are like, 'No, it means you can only have Burger King twice a week as opposed to every day.' 'Cause I go through periods where I eat fast food every single day and often twice or three times a day.
"Yeah, that [stuff] cuts years off your life. Yeah, you'll see me at McDonalds. You won't see me at some … nightclub."
The Toronto International Film Festival runs until Sunday.
