On Movies: Two 'Youth in Revolt' stars tell no tales

Michael Cera

and

Portia Doubleday

, the romantic duo of

Youth in Revolt

, blew into town in November, whistle-stopping on a five-city tour to talk up their charmingly goofball coming-of-age comedy.

Sadly, neither of 'em was very good at talking.

That's not to say that Cera - the twiggy Canadian with the wimpy hipster airs - isn't likable. Ditto for Doubleday, a newcomer from a family of Hollywood actors (mom Christina Hart, dad Frank Doubleday, sis Caitlin Doubleday) who goes to Cal State Northridge when she's not making movies.

But the conversation didn't exactly carom around the room. Maybe it was the questions, but the best that came out of asking about the reshoots the film required - one of the reasons the made-in-2008 pic is just now opening in theaters - was Cera and Doubleday chuckling over the "fried pickles and catfish" at their Shreveport, La., locale.

As for director Miguel Arteta, who adapted Youth in Revolt from the series of cult-fave books by C.D. Payne, "he's great, fantastic," says Doubleday. "Supportive," says Cera.

"He was really hands-on, and I like that," adds Doubleday.

"He was handsome," deadpans Cera.

Cera, of Juno and Superbad fame, plays Nick Twisp, a 16-year-old virgin who tumbles for the sophisticated, not-a-virgin Sheeni (Doubleday). Spurred on by his imaginary alter ego, Francois, a French-accented, cigarette-smoking smoothy with a pencil-thin mustache - a role Cera dug into with relish - Nick Twisp eventually wins Sheeni's heart, wreaking havoc and destruction along the way. Steve Buscemi, Zach Galifianakis, Ari Graynor, Ray Liotta, Mary Kay Place, Jean Smart, M. Emmet Walsh, and Fred Willard make up the ace supporting cast.

Doubleday says she doesn't have a new film lined up yet.

Cera doesn't, either, though he took the lead in the much anticipated Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, based on the popular graphic novel and directed by Edgar Wright.

"I think the really weird part about being an actor is that you never know what's going to happen next," Cera muses, doodling on a notepad in a hotel conference room. "I heard Gene Hackman said one time that when he finishes a movie, he always feels strange because he doesn't know if he's ever going to do another movie again. Which is an insane thing for Gene Hackman to think, but you never know - you don't know anything.

"But something will happen, whether it's, you know, who knows?"

The Imaginarium of Terry Gilliam. There are lots of reasons to recommend The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, the latest from the film fabulist and former Monty Pythonite Terry Gilliam. For one, the full-tilt fantasy, playing now at the Ritz at the Bourse, is a grand mash-up of themes and motifs - magic, mortality, beauty, heroism, little people, space/time conundrums - familiar to fans of Gilliam's work.

For another, the film marks Heath Ledger's final turn. The actor, with a key role as a seductive carny barker in cahoots with Dr. Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) and his gang, died midway through production. Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell, and Jude Law stepped in to play incarnations of Ledger's character - paying tribute to their fallen colleague and saving Gilliam's project.

"We'd done all of the London shoot, which was basically half the film," reports the American expat, on the phone from his U.K. home earlier this week. "We finished that, and Heath went off to New York and then died on us. . . . It's the most unforeseeable event I've ever experienced in my life. There was just no way Heath could ever die, as far as we were concerned. He was so full of life and energy and ability . . . . He was limitless, I really felt. And he was playful, and daring. He was like the guy on a high wire who was fearless, he would just leap in."

Gilliam says that Parnassus was in limbo for a couple of weeks as he - and the world - reeled over Ledger's death in January 2008. "I was convinced it was over because I've been through this before" - alluding to his stillborn Johnny Depp Don Quixote project, for one, his epic Brazil fights with the studio, and other star-crossed undertakings.

"It was about a week before we said, 'OK, there may be a way of solving this thing.' And in fact, once I got my head around it, it was very quick. Everything fell into place, and then it was a matter of finding three people who would be willing to come in and take over the job, and that was a lot of phone calls. Luckily, we ended up with the three that were appropriate."

And how.

(Gilliam, who shot his dark, time-traveling Brad Pitt/Bruce Willis fantasy Twelve Monkeys in Philadelphia in the mid-1990s, asks how things are here. He remembers "a strange place, this very tight little center and then urban devastation for a mile or two. . . . There were two abandoned power stations, which was great for us, but boy, so the place doesn't need electricity, because they don't manufacture anymore!")

With Parnassus playing well in Europe and just now opening across the States, Gilliam is turning his attention to The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. It's a different script from the failed Quixote project he started with Depp (the subject of the terrific 2002 documentary, Lost In La Mancha). Robert Duvall is now onboard in the title role as the windmill-tilting wanderer, and, yes, Depp will be back in the saddle as sidekick Sancho Panza.

"That's the next one," confirms Gilliam. "We're up and running. We've got a budget, we've got to get it a bit lower, and we've got to go through the same old knocking on doors with a begging bowl, but that's what we do for a living. . . .

"What's nice about it for me is it feels like a new project. And Duvall - I can't think of anybody more right for this new version of Quixote. . . . And when he gets excited about things, it's a joy to behold. And he's excited."