Jay: Yeah, itâs so strange. As a fan of all of them, it made that job so much easier. Some difficult parts were ruining hours of usable film because I was laughing at what they were saying. I basically had to be the audience essentially and the voice of reason. I just tired my best to just not step on them and maybe, if there was a moment, try to be a bit funny myself.
Q: Did you do gun training for this and how heavy were they?
Jay. Yeah, a little and they were real â16âsâ. It wasnât as heavy as I thought it would be. I was a little boy once so I played cops and robbers and G.I. Joe.
Q: So this must have had fun playing soldier then?
Jay: Oh yeah. It literally was like I could pay my rent by playing cops and robbers. That stuff was the easiest. The weapons stuff was the most fun.
Q: Are you like your character
Jay: [laughs] Not even close. The similarity, for me, is I am a wealth of useless information like the Blu-Ray riff. There is a scene where I just talk about the battle between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. Thatâs literally in there because Ben heard me talking about that one day. Thereâs other versions of that scene where I went on a riff about how underrated Renny Harlan is and stuff like that. Thatâs the stuff thatâs me. I am just a film nerd. Thatâs all I do with my time.
Q: You have a line where you say, your character is still a virgin so do you think your character gets in this movie then goes to some club in L.A. and gets laid?
Jay: No one knows who the hell he is. I donât imagine he does. I donât imagine anyone gives a shit. He waits in line and doesnât get in then goes to Carlâs Junior.
Q: How much stuff do you have in the fake mockumentary that will be online and on the DVD?
Jay: A fair bit. Itâs not like I even shot a whole lot. In one of the scenes that didnât make it into the cut thereâs a big old party scene where I tell Coogan how grateful I am that he hired me. Iâm still living off the residuals from an anti-herpes medication commercial I did years ago. So, the documentary contains said commercial, my herpes commercial and shows a bit of
Q: Who was your favorite person to work with on this film?
Jay: No matter what, Iâll sound like a cliché but I did make so many good friends. It was weird. There were days on end where Iâd spend countless hours in Jackâs trailer watching TV with him or playing video games or just chillinâ or go over to his house and watch âRoad Warriorâ or something. Then Brandon Jackson, his trailer was literally right next to mine and we spent the bulk of our free time together. Then, I became pretty close with Ben as well. He knew, clearly, what a film nerd I was so when he was setting up shots, he would constantly bring me over to video village or on the little mini-monitor he had so he could set up shots that he was in, he would let me stand over his shoulder and show me, just because he knew how cool I thought everything was. So, he would constantly let me know what the shots were and show me stuff that had nothing to do with my job just because he knew that I got a kick out of it. So, I got along with all of them really well.
Q: Did anything funny happen on set between scenes or anything?
Jay: The water buffalo figures prominently in the movie. Sheâs a great animal, Bertha, her name was. Somehow the trainers didnât know that Bertha was nine months pregnant and she gave birth during the filming and they named it Baby Jack. There is a scene, I imagine it was before she gave birth, that would explain why she was in a bad mood, but they had Jack tied to her and one of the rules was just âdonât run behind her. Sheâll get scared and start runningâ. And I had to walk her. Iâm pulling her on the rope there and someone ran behind her real quick. She got spooked and threw Jack off her shoulders. Jack went flying into a generator. His stunt double went and threw himself in between Jack and the generator and, in the same split second, she wheels over and just head butts me with her horns [he says antlers but folks.. itâs horns on a buffalo] and I end up in the bushes.
Q: Donât mess with the pregnant women!
Jay: Oh yeah. Oh my God. Hell hath no fury like a water buffalo scorned.
Q: You did âUndeclaredâ and âFreaks and Geeksâ and both have a big cult following. Since they never really had any resolutions, is there any chance in the future Judd [Apatow] film to have a couple of cameos of any of the characters?
Jay: Nothing would make me happier. Personally, Iâve been wanting to do the âUndeclaredâ movie since it ended. Clearly weâre too old to be in university anymore but I think it could be interesting to see what weâre all up to in our 20-somethings. But thatâs a Judd question. I would assume that, no matter what, the same people keep appearing in all of his stuff so I think inevitably, that will happen. But, heâll have to answer that. Nothing would make me happier.
Q: Heâs doing the âStand Upâ movie too. Do you have a bit part in that?
Jay: No. Iâm not involved with that one.
Q: Speaking of âFreaks and Geeksâ, what were you like in high school?
Jay: I went to a fine arts school so there are neither freaks nor geeks there. Everybody is both. The things I liked I excelled at. I was real good at English and Drama and everything else I was terrible at. I had barely 60 percent in everything just so I wouldnât fail. I did the old sailing through Math and Science and all that. I was kind of a big mouth so I guess I was something of the clown or whatever. This was in
Q: Letâs talk âFanboysâ actually coming out.
Jay: Yeah. Letâs see what happens. Iâll believe it when I see it.
Q: What have you been told about this. They screened it at Comic Con.
Jay: Yeah and people seemed to like it. Wow! Iâm going to get myself in trouble. Look, itâs been almost three years and a myriad of directors and versions. Iâm not the authority on it. Iâve been saying itâs like the Sword of Damocles hanging over my head for the better part of three years.
Q: They did re-shoots. How much did they actually re-shoot?
Jay: Yeah, we did re-shoot a fair bit actually and I donât think they ended up using a lot of what we re-shot. I think they ended up going back to the original story which is awesome that we went through all of that a year after, two years after the fact on two different occasions. I have not seen the latest version so I canât actually tell you how much of the re-shoots made it in but I know there was a time when they were trying to remove a pretty important, sizeable part of the plot out of it and finding a way to re-shoot their way through that.
Q: Was it a few days or weeks that you guys re-shot?
Jay: It was two different four-day weeks so of a year apart.
Q: Itâs the project that will never end.
Jay: No, never.
Q: Can you talk about who you play in âSheâs Out of My Leagueâ?
Jay: I am the âMyâ, basically. She is a girl called Alice Eve, an English actress. I play a TSA guy. I work in the X-Ray machine at the airport in
Q: Nice airport.
Jay: [laughing] The airport, yeah. Well, I was there for weeks on end. There is nothing more fun than going through all those security checkpoints and not getting to fly anywhere.
Q: Did you have to research with real TSA guys?
Jay: Well, I mean, come one, honestly? No offense to TSA but really, itâs not the Navy Seals.
Q: How does your career look to you right now?
Jay: It beats a poke in the face. Look, Iâve been at it since I was twelve years old; six years in Canadian childrenâs television, essentially, relative obscurity as far as
Q: And you can pursue a career from a
Jay: Thatâs it. I have been stubborn about it and itâs worked out so thatâs real nice.
Q: What kind of music are you into and do you play an instrument?
Jay: Yeah. Iâve played drums since I was fourteen. Iâve played synthesizer for the better part of the last five or six years. I play drums in a band. I play synthesizer, I guess itâs a band. Well, itâs me. I just make music that I listen to when I play videogames or make heavy stuff to listen to while Iâm lifting weights or playing videogames. I know itâs hard to believe that I lift weights but sometimes I do or so push-ups or something.
Q: Who do you listen to when you are just kicking back?
Jay: I really like Joy Division and New Order and my favorite band of all time is a band from Montreal called God Speed You Black Emperor and I like My Bloody Valentine a fair bit Around right now, I quite like a guy from France called M-83 and his new album is really, really nice. It depends what mood Iâm in or how pissed off I am.