I know I said the other day that I wasn’t going to go out and try to score interviews with any of the Hollywood types that are blowing through the area. But that was before I knew that Arrested Development’s Michael Cera was among them. Now, I’m reconsidering.

Maybe the rest of you already knew this, but in addition to the Drew Barrymore movie shooting in Ypsi, and the indie film about the college art student filming in Ann Arbor, there’s a bit of work being done locally on a film starring Ray Liotta, Steve Buscemi and Michael Cera called Youth in Revolt. The film, as I understand it, is being shot for the most part in Texas, but they’re doing a bit of work here in Michigan, in order to take advantage of the Governor Granholm’s incentives. Most of it’s being done in Royal Oak, but I’m told that some is being shot on Ann Arbor’s South First Street.

As they’re wrapping local production this Thursday, I don’t have much time to act. I just called and left a message for the publicity department at Dimension Films, so I suppose there’s a slight chance that someone there might respond to me. Not wanting to count on that, however, I’ve decided to also make this rare request of you, my readers… If you see Michael Cera, please ask him to contact me.

I’d originally had another idea, but Linette talked me out of it. I was going to scan in a flyer that I’d drawn, post it here, and ask that you all print it and tape it up around Ann Arbor. The poster showed me and Cera sitting down together, having a rollicking good time discussing life. Linette, however, talked me out of it. She said that, if he saw it, it would, “scare the shit out of him.” I didn’t think it was that bad, but, having been told before that I have the handwriting of a psychopath, I decided to defer to her… If you want, however, please feel free to make a poster of your own saying, “Michael Cera, contact Mark Maynard at your earliest convenience,” or something along those lines. Just do me a favor and try not to do it in a way that might elicit pant-shitting terror. And you might also want to mention that, in addition to running one of the most read blogs in Michigan, I publish an award-winning magazine (Crimewave), and I’ve interviewed “everyone who is anyone in the entertainment business, from Peter Falk to Daniel Johnston.” (If it carries any weight with him, I’ve also interviewed his Arrested Development cast-mate David Cross.)

As of right now, I’m not really sure what I’d ask him, but I’m sure I could come up with something. Maybe we’d talk about how much he looks and acts like a me when I was young. (Celebrities, I’ve found, really enjoy being interviewed about me.) Or, maybe we’d talk about how much more popular I would have been as a young man if he’d preceded me. I generally don’t have a good idea where these conversations will go when I start one. I usually just jump in — most often with some narcissistic point of reference — and then just see where the conversation leads. Most of the time, it works… Hopefully he’s game.

So, now get out there and find Michael Cera.