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Michael Cera walks into a room at the Four Seasons Hotel in Toronto, shrugs off his red knapsack, and shyly asks if anyone minds if he makes himself a cup of java.

“Do you mind if I make a coffee real quick?” asks the actor. “I like it with sugar and milk,” he explains. “It's really, really delicious.” And while he stirs with a plastic stick, the 20-year-old chats – in his halting, adorkable way – about his new film, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, a light-hearted, indie version of a John Hughes coming-of-age film.

Cera's aw-shucks dweebiness – so evident in roles like George-Michael Bluth in Arrested Development, Paulie Bleeker in Juno and Evan in Superbad – is no act. This dude from suburban Brampton, Ont., is truly a nerd – albeit a sweet, funny and extremely talented one.

“My manager sent me a copy of Raising Victor Vargas, which is a movie that [director] Pete [Sollett] did, and I really loved it and wanted to meet with him,” says this master of the awkward pause. “Then I went to New York, met him and really liked him. And wanted to work with him. Yeah,” Cera says with a self-conscious giggle. “Yeah, then we made it.”

Cera says he immediately related to his Nick and Norah character, a down-on-his-luck bassist in the queercore (a punk offshoot) band called the Jerk Offs, who, as the story begins, has just been dumped by his shallow girlfriend, Tris (Alexis Dziena).

“I can relate to being broken up with, heartache and meeting someone and striking up a friendship,” says the unlikely teen heartthrob.

Has he any tips for getting over a breakup? “Yeah,” Cera quips. “Watch this movie.”

Shot in New York in 29 days, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist – which came to theatres yesterday – is based on the novel by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan. Cera plays the heartsick Nick, who gets thrown into a sleepless night of adventure with Norah (Kat Dennings), as the two careen through the streets of the Lower East Side in Nick's beat-up yellow Yugo, looking for their favourite band, Where's Fluffy, and also trying to find Norah's best friend Caroline (Ari Graynor), a gum-snapping blonde who is blotto drunk and lost (and the film's primary scene-stealer).

Sollett, who cast Cera in the lead before the breakout success of Juno and Superbad, says the actor's low-key manner, ordinary looks and savvy improvisational skills made him perfect to play the film's non-threatening romantic lead – an ordinary guy who does the right thing and gets the girl.

“When I met Mike, I'd never seen him in anything, and I hadn't caught up with Arrested Development,” explains the New York-based director, whose Raising Victor Vargas was a 2003 Sundance darling. “But Kerry Kohansky, my producer, suggested him to me. I met him, and he was an incredibly sweet, bright, dry wit, who was very soulful and seemed good for the part. And he's cute as hell. I want to eat him.

“And he's funny as hell,” adds Sollett. “I think he's somehow just really representative of the sort of vulnerable, sensitive, honest inner self that we all carry around in there.”

Cera's background is as low-key as his manner. His mother, Linda, and father, Luigi, lived in a modest suburb in Brampton, northwest of Toronto. They worked at Xerox and sent their kids (Cera has two sisters) to nearby public schools. Their only son was smitten with acting after taking some improv classes at Toronto's Second City. His mom, who hails from Montreal, took him to Los Angeles when he was in his teens to audition for some parts, and he landed the role of the deadpan Michael-George in the Fox Network's absurdist sitcom Arrested Development. Then director Judd Apatow took a shine to the Canadian, casting him in Superbad, and his career took off. (His fictional firing from Apatow's Knocked Up – in which he plays himself as an actor with way too much attitude – is a hugely popular Web download.)

But Cera doesn't seem phased by his stardom and calls the past year's success “nice.

“You never think about, or expect anything,” he says. “I still don't. I've been enjoying it. I enjoy working. I really like it, being on the sets,” he adds. “It's nice to be able to do that, being able to continue doing it.”

Co-star Graynor attests to Cera's work ethic. “He's one of the sweetest guys you'll ever meet, and he's incredibly hard-working.

“On-set, he has the most incredible attitude. Always so excited – so in the moment – having the best time. Someone like him, who has had such good fortune this year, sometimes people get jaded and jaded fast. And you would not know, in any way, that anything has ever happened to him that's been this good,” says Graynor, who has a vomiting scene in Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist that may only rival the one in Trainspotting. “He really feels like the kid getting off the bus with the backpack.”

Sollett says Cera's knack for improvising made the script better. And he offers an example. “Okay, written in the script: “So, your friends are all gay, right?”

“Yeah, they're all gay.”

But, in the movie: “So your friends are all gay, right?”

[Cera says:] “Yeah. They're gay. Gay, every day, all the time. If somebody's going to get raped in that band tonight, it will be a guy.”

Cera just smiles when he hears the director's praise, but insists improv is no big deal. “Just listen, that's all you have to do. I think anyone can do it. If you can have a conversation, you can improvise. As long as you're not trying to be funny. I mean that's when you can start to … you know … trick yourself and like … you know it's just much easier to talk and not have to worry about being funny.”

Cera's next film is Youth in Revolt, due in theatres this February, based on the cult novel of the same name by C.D. Payne. It's about a young guy who meets a girl on a family vacation and then becomes obsessed with her. “It's a great book. And anyone should read it if they have the time,” says Cera. “I've read it five times. I loved the book, and loved the character, and was so excited to do it.”

Recently, some film critics have been making noise that Cera is always the same nerdy guy. They believe he should stretch a little, show more range, or he'll become stale. Cera pays no mind to the skeptics.

He just wants to work. And he plans to keep on working.

“I like anything that feels authentic. That comes from a real place … from someone's heart. I've never liked those gross-out comedies. I just try to pick things that I think are good.”

His sonar has worked so far. And audiences obviously like Cera – the funny geek who proves it can be cool to be a nice, sensitive guy.