A man-child who grew up before our eyes, Mr. Cera is now 25 and in that place where many actors who were irresistible when they were young become invisible as they reach adulthood. It hasn’t gone that way for him. Instead, he is adding significant wrinkles to how people see him.

Mr. Cera is in New York looking for an apartment — in Brooklyn, where else? — and we are sitting on the deck of the Standard hotel in the meatpacking district. It is an epic sunny day with working ferries chugging up and down the Hudson, toy boats at this distance. Actors generally step to interviews on highest alert, making sure they convey intellectual heft and a clear sense of their career. Mr. Cera has no message, no take, no sound bites, just a curiosity in the questions and a willingness simply to answer them. Similar to his coming-of-age characters, he is funny in a low-key way, but he’s quietly confident, something that doesn’t come through on screen. And unlike his more recent characters, or many actors for that matter, he is very content in the moment, chatting, laughing and quietly cracking wise.

After sitting for a photo, he killed time reading “Moby-Dick” and eating a late lunch. A reporter might observe the pretentiousness of the young actor showing up with a thick paperback classic, except that he knew the book and talked at length about Herman Melville’s personal travails.

Mr. Cera has an interest in things beyond a busy career that started early and has included movies like “Youth in Revolt,” “Superbad,” “Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist” and “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.”

Because Mr. Cera came of age in public, a child star from Canada who spent his formative adolescence on “Arrested Development” (on Fox from 2003 to 2006), there is an impulse to assume that the kid we saw on television is now a man we know. And even though he’s performed vile and profane acts in the name of comedy, you can’t help assigning a kind of sweetness to him. If he were dating your daughter, you’d keep an eye on him but secretly be pleased she picked a funny, well-mannered boyfriend.