Michael Cera Turned Down a ‘Fantastic Beasts’ Meeting: I Didn’t Want to Be ‘Too Famous’
Michael Cera let his fear of fame dictate his rule against franchises. The “Phoenician Scheme” actor has long voiced his aversion to celebrity, but the star is now revealing that he turned down a role in “Harry Potter” prequel franchise “Fantastic Beasts” because of it.
“I don’t even know if I was offered, I think I just declined to engage with it because I think it would be probably a six-year commitment or something. But also, I did sort of make a conscientious choice to limit my exposure a little bit, or just try and be a little more in control of it,” Cera said during the “Louis Theroux Podcast”. “And I felt like doing, especially little kids’ movies, I had a big fear of doing things that I would get too famous.”
“Fantastic Beasts” stars Eddie Redmayne as an expert on magical creatures. Jude Law plays a young Albus Dumbledore who enlists his help to defeat Gellert Grindelwald, as played by Johnny Depp and later Mads Mikkelsen for the third film amid Depp’s firing. The franchise was announced in 2016 to consist of five films; only three have been released, with features in 2016, 2018, and 2022. Law said in 2024 that the other franchise installments are most likely “on hold.”
Meanwhile, Cera has “changed” his mind “a little” about franchises in his career now.
“I think I’ve outgrown that particular feeling, but I think that’s what that was at that time,” he said. “But if a franchise came along now and seemed interesting, I don’t think on the grounds of it being a franchise I would storm out of the office or anything.”
Cera previously told The Guardian that by age 19, he contemplated stepping away from Hollywood for good due to his “overwhelming” rise to fame after “Juno” and “Superbad,” both of which were released in 2007. “I didn’t know how to handle walking down the street,” Cera said. “Fame makes you very uncomfortable in your own skin, and makes you paranoid and weird. There were lots of great things about it, and I met a lot of amazing people, but there’s a lot of bad energies, too, ones that I was not equipped to handle.”
Cera even turned down hosting “Saturday Night Live” in an effort to tame his celeb status. “There was a point where I wanted to stop taking jobs that would make me more famous,” the actor said. “I was kind of having a bit of a crisis. I was really not enjoying the level of heat. I really didn’t know if I was going to keep being an actor.”
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