#Jay Baruchel on his starring role in sitcom ‘The Moodys’

When Jay Baruchel took his starring role in Fox sitcom “The Moodys,” he enlisted his wife’s help. 

“I got sent the script about a month before I was about to get married. If I took the gig, it would mean starting a day or two after our wedding . So of course I had to ask my — at that time — fiancee what she thought,” he said, referring to Canadian model Rebecca-Jo Dunham Baruchel, who he married in 2019. 

“We each cracked open our laptops and sat on either side of the kitchen table and read them simultaneously and were both laughing a whole bunch. That made it easy.”

Season 2 of “The Moodys” premieres Thursday, April 1 (9 p.m.). Baruchael returns as Sean Moody Jr., one of the three adult Moody children. Other members of the close yet dysfunctional family include his brother Dan (Francois Arnaud), sister Bridget (Chelsea Frei) and his cantankerous parents, Ann (Elizabeth Perkins) and Sean Sr (Denis Leary).

“We all get on like a house on fire,” he said. “[Perkins and Leary] are both just so good at what they do, it makes me better, being around them. It’s been wonderful getting to be their fake son.”

Season 1 revolved around the Moody family reuniting at Christmas when each had their own struggles and self-destructive behaviors: Dan got into a messy love triangle with his cousin’s girlfriend while Sean Jr. was still living with his parents and working at an ice rink. Bridget, meanwhile, was a high-powered lawyer who had recently cheated on her husband. 

Season 2 sees Dan continuing to have love troubles, Bridget getting divorced, parents Ann and Sean Sr. contemplating a road trip, and Sean Jr. chasing “get rich quick” schemes such as a funeral business involving fireworks (to “revolutionize the grieving industry”).

“I am incredibly fortunate that I found a career in acting, because basically if I didn’t get on TV and movies, there’s a very good chance that I am Sean Jr,” said Baruchel. “We’re wired very similarly in that we’re chronic daydreamers — as passionate about the stuff we dig as we are absolutely incapable of doing anything else, to our respective detriments. There’s a lot of me in him and vice versa. But the biggest thing is that I was lucky enough to trick people into giving me a career in movies and stuff.”

Baruchel, who grew up in Montreal and is now based in Toronto, is known for a slew of movie and TV roles, including “Knocked Up,” “Tropic Thunder,” “How to Train Your Dragon,” and “Undeclared.” As high-profile as many of his projects are, fans often approach him about one that’s much more obscure. 

“Actually I think the one I get recognized for the most is one a lot of people in the States have no idea was a thing. When I was 15, I co-hosted an educational show called ‘Popular Mechanics for Kids.’ It was on all the time up here [in Canada], so it’s like a whole generation of kids that ate cereal every day watching me teach them about centrifugal force. That’s probably the one I get the most love for still, to this day.”

While he was tight-lipped about Season 2 of “The Moodys,” he had a cryptic teaser. 

“It’s pretty crazy. Sean is a very ambitious lad, and he maybe doesn’t always think everything through as well as he should, so I’ll say this: there are monks involved. What would make people interested that wouldn’t give anything away? Monks.”