The tale of the awkward teenager hero sees new light in Youth in Revolt, the latest film starring Michael Cera alongside newcomer Portia Doubleday. The film, based upon the novel by CD Payne of the same name, chronicles the adventures of Nick Twisp, awkward teen extraordinaire, as he attempts to leave behind his boring life with an oblivious mother and an absent father and pursue the life of his fantasies with Sheeni Saunders, the most beautiful girl he has ever met. After finding his attempts to woo Sheeni with his own "nice guy" personality unsuccessful, he creates an alter ego named Francois Dillinger who is, unlike Nick, capable of doing all of the bad boy things required to win Sheeni over. Absolute hilarity ensues as Francois's antics, including the crashing of an all-girls dormitory at a French language school and burning almost the entire city of Berkeley down, lead Nick away from the law and running after Sheeni, hoping to one day end up in the arms of the girl he has given up his painfully normal adolescent life to fight for.

I recently had the opportunity to sit down with author CD Payne and lead actor and actress Michael Cera and Portia Doubleday (along with a few other Bay Area journalists) and find out about their younger years, what some of their influences behind playing these characters were, how impressionable young people can be, and why they love this story so much. Here is some of what they had to say.

What appealed to you about this book and this story?

Michael Cera: I love the characters, I love the voice; you know, it's a really fun part. And the book is hilarious, and it's very cinematic too, where you can really see it making a movie as you're reading it.

You were a big fan of the book. Were you, in a lot of ways, the main impetus behind getting the movie made?

MC: Well, I wouldn't say that. I think the movie was sort of bouncing around for a few years before I was ever involved, but I was definitely actively trying to be a part of it. But I think it was kind of in production or in development for a few years before I was brought on.

Now, you have said that this book is not condescending towards teenagers. Can you elaborate on that?

MC: Right, that's true. I've read a few books that almost read as sort of false naivetè, which is really sort of annoying when you're reading books that are written in the voice of teenagers, and this one was not guilty of that at all.

At first, Nick seems like a very familiar character for you, but then suddenly you're Francois [a completely different character]. How was that transformation for you? How uncomfortable was it to be in those contacts, that outfit?

MC: It wasn't uncomfortable. The contacts were a strange adjustment cuz I've never had those in my eyes so that's a foreign object in your eye, so that's weird at first but you kinda get used to it and it was fun. I really enjoyed having them on and same with the mustache and the clothes. It was just a lot of fun to get that stuff on.

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