Jay Baruchel isn’t afraid of a little pain on the job.

During a November shoot for the new comedy Man Seeking Woman, (debuting Jan. 14 on FXX) the 32-year old Montreal actor purposely flung his gangly body into the boards at a suburban Ontario ice rink.

With the cameras rolling and wearing a hockey helmet, Baruchel gave the director take after take of humiliating falls, landing on his back, sides and stomach, while the rest of the crew stifled laughter behind the monitors.

But despite saying he felt “all sorts of beat up” hours after the scene wrapped, Baruchel says slapstick is still one of his favourite types of comedy – and something he’s been a practicing since he was a kid.

“It was my means of self-defence," he says. "I was the same size as every other kid until I hit Grade 7 and so, as a result I was raised that if a kid talked s--- to me, I’d talk s--- back to him. He hits me, I’d hit him back. Then they kept growing and I stopped. And after a year of getting into fights with kids twice my size, I realized I wasn’t going to win any of them, so to keep them from beating me up, I’d beat the s--- out of myself.”

The years of experience Baruchel has for taking hits is good news for everyone involved with Man Seeking Woman. Based on the book The Last Girlfriend on Earth: And Other Love Stories, by former Saturday Night Live writer Simon Rich, the show’s brand of surreal comedy throws its star into all kinds of strange fantastical situations, from ice skating numbers and restaurant chase scenes, to an upcoming episode with something called a Japanese penis monster.

For mobile users, click this link

Yes. You read that correctly.

Baruchel plays Josh Greenberg, a lovable but awkward romantic back in the dating scene after getting dumped by his girlfriend Maggie, played by Maya Erskine. The cast also includes his sister Liz (Britt Lower), pal Mike (Eric Andre) and some added Canadian content with Robin Duke (SCTV, SNL) and The Kids in the Hall’s Mark McKinney as Josh’s parents.

The set-up is fairly conventional, but the rest of it is anything but. For instance, in the pilot, Josh is set up on a blind date with a troll. Not merely an unattractive woman, but an actual troll – like the ones that live underneath bridges.

It’s that type of unorthodox, absurd storytelling that drew Baruchel to the role.

“When I read the first script, I was blown away at how unique it was and how definitive it was,” he says. “It read like the best short film I’d ever seen.”

“It’s kind of like when you meet a girl that you think is cool, you’re like, ‘Oh, there’s no way that this girl’s single.’ [I thought] There’s no way this part isn’t cast already… and for whatever reason, they wanted me and I’m so bloody thankful for it.”

It’s not surprising the project looked so appealing. Rich meticulously handpicked the creative team, giving the show a pedigree straight out of a comedy nerd’s dream: Jonathan Krisel (Portlandia, Kroll Show), Benjamin Berman (Comedy Bang! Bang!, Workaholics), Tim Kirkby (Brooklyn 99, Veep) and Simpsons writer Ian Maxtone-Graham.

For Baruchel, though, one of the biggest names attached to the show was his now-TV dad McKinney, a man whose work in the groundbreaking Canadian sketch comedy show The Kids in the Hall was a huge influence – and showed him how “cool” Canadian comedy could be.

“We’re raised to think Canada’s not cool. And then I saw Kids in the Hall, and I saw that bad-ass opening sequence and they all looked awesome,” he says. “That was the first time where I was like, ‘Yeah. Why the f--- not? Why are we any less cool than anywhere else?’

“So to get to work with [McKinney] and pick his brain and then to find out he’s equally a patriot and also a history nerd like me. So we just became fast friends. I never thought I’d get the chance to work with him ever.”

marianne.dowling@sunmedia.ca

@frekna