Jonah Hill: Fame was scary
Jonah Hill found being suddenly thrust into the spotlight a "scary" experience.
Jonah Hill found his sudden fame "scary".
The 42-year-old actor became a household name following his breakout role as high school senior Seth in 2007's Superbad and while the sudden attention he and his co-star Michael Cera received could be "exciting", he also found it uncomfortable.
Speaking during a special Sirius XM-hosted live taping of the Smartless podcast, Jonah said: “It was psycho.[Michael and I] couldn't walk around and it was so exciting and kind of scary.”
Fans struggled to separate Jonah and Michael from their characters in the film, so they would always attract attention.
He said: “Our lives were like that movie and people would see us and they'd freak out because it's like we walked off the screen into the world."
The duo stuck to a routine to keep life as normal as possible, walking to a nearby deli together every day, but Jonah admitted the experience made it hard to stay grounded.
He said: “It's impossible not to become a weird person."
The Wolf of Wall Street actor revealed during the recording he and wife Olivia Millar left Los Angeles three years ago because they wanted to raise their children outside of Hollywood.
He said: "So I live in a very small town in San Diego, and it’s amazing, and my neighbours are incredible people.
“And when we had our first kid, we moved out there three years ago. I wanted to leave LA and raise a family outside of Los Angeles."
Jonah, who recently welcomed his second child into the world, has still been able to travel back and forth for work, but he's appreciated being away from the Hollywood bubble.
He added: "[My neighbours] never treat me weird or ask me about my job or anything.
"And my neighbour is one of my great friends, Dr. Sean, he never asked. He’s here tonight. He never bothered me or was like, ‘Oh, what’s this person like?’ ”
Despite being glad to have moved away, Jonah has fond memories growing up in LA around the freedom and punk rock culture.
He recalled: “I grew up here. L.A. was such a cool place to grow up in the ’90s because you could go skateboard downtown or you could sneak into a movie premiere or you could go sneak into a comedy club and see Chris Rock or something.
“You had access to show business stuff, but you had access to punk and skating and graffiti and all the naughty stuff. And there was no internet. It was just so awesome.”
