To UAE film fans, rising star Jay Baruchel is becoming something of a familiar face - or voice - with three hit films in recent succession. He played Kirk Kettner alongside beautiful Alice Eve in romcom ‘She’s Out Of My League’ and also voiced Hiccup in ‘How To Train Your Dragon’. And now he is starring alongside Nicolas Cage in Jerry Bruckheimer’s Disney adaptation of ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’.

he future looks bright too for the 28-year-old, as these assignments followed on from roles in Clint Eastwood’s ‘Million Dollar Baby’, and Ben Stiller’s all-star comedy project ‘Tropic Thunder’. 

But despite working alongside some top names, it was a slightly older screen icon that had Jay nervous.

Jay plays physics student Dave Stutler in the movie, the reluctant apprentice to Cage’s modern-day sorcerer Balthazar Blake.

But it’s not Cage - one of the famous Coppola clan - who had the Canadian worried. It was cartoon character Mickey Mouse. One scene in the movie, where Jay is cleaning up ahead of a date, is a take on the famous ‘magic mops’ scene from 1940 classic ‘Fantasia’. And Jay says: “You’d be hard-pressed to find any character that means more to everyone than Mickey Mouse does, so I was really scared because I didn’t want to ruin it.

But I was excited by the fact that I could blow it so easily. It’s like serving blowfish at a sushi restaurant - with one wrong cut you could kill everyone. I approached it with a kind of religious reverence - goal one was to pay homage to Mickey and goal two was to look for moments to do my thing.”

aruchel survived that ordeal, but suffered for his art by doing all his own stunts on set. He says: “During the training sequences where I'm getting electrocuted, I was really throwing myself around with reckless abandon. I gave myself tinnitus on the set of ‘Tropic Thunder’ because I refused to wear earplugs.

On this one, I said, ‘I don’t need pads, I’ll be fine’. There were nights where I walked around my apartment like the Hunchback of Notre Dame.”

Jay’s acting talents also stretched to some heartfelt impressions of Cage.  He’s a unique individual, prone to making ethereal observations like, ‘What is it about danger that’s so compelling? How can you not love the guy?”

*  ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ is showing this week on select screens across the UAE.
Also showing: M Night Shyamalan’s take on the children’s animated TV  series ‘The Last Airbender’ has been getting some decidedly mixed reviews, et us know what you think at www.7days.ae