Jay Baruchel, as Canadian as the BlackBerry
Jay Baruchel is so proud of his country that he has a maple leaf tattooed on his body.
Did you know that the BlackBerry, the very first smartphone, was invented by a Canadian company? It is precisely out of love for his country that proud Canadian Jay Baruchel decided to star in BlackBerry, a film recounting the rise and fall of this famous phone that was so popular at one time and that no one owns today.
Internationally renowned actor, Jay Baruchel was born in Ottawa , grew up in Montreal's Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighborhood (NDG, for short) and now lives in Toronto. Despite his success in Hollywood over the past two decades, he prefers to stay at home in Canada.
In interview with Metro, Jay Baruchel says that at the beginning of adulthood, he had no choice but to go to work in the United States to ensure a better life for his family, he who had already been paying the bills since he was 14 years old. But he had no intention of becoming famous or staying there forever.
To be honest, he is so proud of his country that he has a maple leaf tattooed on his body.
Jay Baruchel. Photo: JF Galipeau/Métro
A self-diagnosed inferiority
If Jay Baruchel is proud to be Canadian, this feeling is not widely shared, he believes -he. “We are not nice to each other. I was never disrespected in Los Angeles like they were in Toronto or Vancouver. »
It wasn't until he began to have success in the United States that Jay Baruchel's talent was recognized in Canada. And even. The bilingual actor says that during a recent shoot for a Canadian series, crew members began to treat him with less consideration when they learned he was not of American descent .
If French-speaking Canada has a real and living cultural ecosystem, English-speaking Canadians like him place themselves in a position of inferiority, believes a Jay Baruchel saddened by this observation. “We are incapable of thinking that we are interesting.
Something to be proud of
Yet English-speaking Canada has plenty to be proud of, says the 41-year-old actor years.
“Canada is the source of innovations without anyone knowing, because we don't dare to talk about us”, says Jay Baruchel.
It is for this reason that the Canadian film BlackBerry, which deals with a local company that has played a major role in the world, is so important for the one who notably held the title role in the feature film The Trotsky. < /p>
He says he is all the happier because BlackBerry has so far received very good reviews, having nothing to envy to any American film in the same gender.
“Plus, the Americans have five times the budget and twice the shooting time. We had 5.5 million dollars and 35 days of shooting. Imagine what we could do with 80 million and 6 months of filming; we would change the world! »
Jay Baruchel. Photo: JF Galipeau/Métro
A possible step forward
Jay Baruchel believes in a strong Canadian film industry. It evokes recent films, such as I Like Movies, Brother or Scarborough, which were well received. But so far, whenever there are hits, like the movie Goon he starred in, they stand alone.
“When we will have Anglo-Canadian filmmakers who can work in the United States, but who choose to work in Canada as I do, we will know that we have succeeded in creating something,” he believes.
In the meantime, Jay Baruchel, who is also pursuing a career as a filmmaker, will continue to make films that tell Canadian stories that no one has ever told before. This is what he wants to dedicate his career to.
