How To Train Your Dragon 2’s Jay Baruchel on secret regrets and why he reckons he’s a catch

THE women in his life might not all agree with his confident assessment of his appeal but, if so, Jay Baruchel hasn’t noticed.

SANDUSKY, the hapless boy soldier Jay Baruchel played in the Ben Stiller comedy Tropic Thunder, is probably the closest he is ever likely to come to being cast as a Hollywood action hero.

But in real life, the weedy Canadian comic is still coming to terms with his decision, 14 years ago, to choose acting over the army.

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Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr, Nick Nolte, Jack Black, Brandon T. Jackson and Jay Baruchel in <i>Tropic Thunder</i>.

“I come from a family that has served our country — as soldiers and cops — for generations,” says Baruchel, bristling at the suggestion that his physique is better suited to a career in the creative arts.

“Pardon me! My grandad was the same size as me!”

His indignant response puts paid to any suspicion that he might actually be having a lend.

At 18, the How To Train Your Dragon star says he had to be talked out of joining the army.

Jay Baruchel attends a photocall for <i>How To Train Your Dragon 2 </i>in New York.

“Royal Military College was a very real option for me. To be perfectly honest, it’s one of the great issues in my life that I never did it.”

Go figure. Nothing in Baruchel’s CV, which includes Knocked Up, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and the Judd Apatow TV series Undeclared, suggests such hawkish tendencies.

The 32-year-old actor does, however, have a maple leaf tattooed over his heart. And he has never hidden his preference for his birthplace over Hollywood.

This partially explains Baruchel’s enthusiasm for his next two projects, both to be filmed in Canada.

Jay Baruchel with Alice Eve in a scene from the film <i>She's Out Of My League</i>.

The actor describes the FX comedy pilot Man Seeking Woman, in which he plays a naive romantic who finds himself back on the dating scene, as one of the funniest things he has ever read.

And the self-confessed horror fan can’t wait to start shooting 10 O’Clock People, a feature based on a Stephen King short story, in his hometown, Montreal.

“(Stephen King) is one of my absolute heroes,” he says.

“I inherited my fanship from my mother. I don’t know if I will ever get to meet him.

“I would s--- my pants if I did.”

Baruchel certainly has a way with words. He admits his tendency not to self-censor during interviews has caused him a few awkward moments over the years.

Jay Baruchel joins America Ferrera and Cate Blanchett for a photocall in Cannes.

“I wish I wasn’t known for hating Los Angeles because I spend a good deal of time there,” he observed recently.

Baruchel says all the characters he has played are versions of himself — it’s just a matter of degree.

But aside from “Jay Baruchel”, the self-referential role he played in the Seth Rogen comedy This Is The End (2013), How To Train Your Dragon’s Hiccup is perhaps the character with which he has most in common.

“There is a great deal of overlap between Hiccup and me,’’ says the actor, who revisits the role in the hotly anticipated sequel, set five years after the previous story ends.

“I knew exactly who he was and what he was going through,’’ says Baruchel.

Seth Rogen and Jay Baruchel in <i>This is the End</i>.

“I know what it is to be a square peg, to talk far too much for your own good and to have a mind that operates probably quicker than it should.”

At school, the actor, who Ben Stiller once described as a “comic savant”, used humour to disarm difficult situations.

“Even if I was 100 per cent popular I would still have been the same animal,” he says. “I have always had a mouth, a surplus of ideas.”

Baruchel credits his upbringing — “I was raised around strong, dynamic women” — for his healthy sense of self-worth.

At the time of his breakup with The Newsroom’s Alison Pill, Baruchel said he was raised to think he was a catch.

When did he realise his mum’s point of view didn’t necessarily correspond with that of the rest of the world?

“I have yet to have it — which is not to say that moment hasn’t happened, just that I haven’t noticed it,’’ he says.

■ How To Train Your Dragon 2 previews this weekend before general release on June 19

Canadian actor Jay Baruchel poses for photographers in Cannes last month.

Originally published as How To Train Your Dragon 2’s Jay Baruchel on secret regrets and why he reckons he’s a catch