Bleeker’s House from “Juno”

Another Vancouver location that fellow stalker Owen managed to track down was the supposed Minnesota-area house belonging to dorky high school track-star Paulie Bleeker (aka Michael Cera) in the 2007 breakout dramedy Juno.  And even though I was not a big fan of the flick – it was funny and all, but not especially spectacular and, in my never-to-be-humble opinion, dealt with the issue of teenage pregnancy far too cavalierly for my taste – because it was such a huge hit and because I was in the area three weeks ago, I just had to stalk the house where Paulie lived.  I should mention here that I did love Ellen Page’s performance in the movie – she was absolutely adorable, not to mention the fact that her acting was phenomenal.  So, I guess there’s that.  🙂   But I digress.  Owen managed to find the Bleeker family residence thanks to a Flikr page which posted a number of photos of locales featured in Juno, along with a rather vague description of where they could be found.  From there, he did a bit of cyber-stalking and was fairly quickly able to pin down the exact location of Paulie’s house.  Thank you, Owen!

According to the blog written by Academy-Award-winning Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody during the filming of the flick, Bleeker’s house was the very first location that the cast and crew shot at.  Sadly, though, the owners of the property gave the exterior of their home a slight facelift after filming wrapped, so the residence looks a bit different today than it did on February 14, 2007, when the filming of Juno began.  Boo!

The most notable difference, for me at least, was the fact that the mailbox which Juno filled with Tic Tacs candies in order to surprise Bleeker was not actually there in real life.

Nor was it there in the movie’s final scene, though, which was a fairly big gaff on the filmmakers’ part.

Because Bleeker’s mailbox was M.I.A. in the movie’s closing scene, I am fairly certain that it was, in actuality, just a prop that was brought in for the filming.  As you can see in the above photograph, the home’s real life mailbox is located just to the left of the front door.

And I, of course, just had to sit in the same spot where Bleeker and Juno sat while singing The Moldy Peaches’ “Anyone Else But You” in that final scene.

Amazingly enough, while we were stalking the house, the owner happened to walk outside – well, truth be told, she actually came outside to investigate why I was sitting on her front stoop 😉 – and she truly could NOT have been nicer.  She answered all of my silly little questions about the filming and didn’t even mind at all that I was sitting on her property.  She explained that her home has become a frequent stalking destination ever since Juno premiered back in 2007 and that visitors frequently stop by to pose for photographs on her front stoop.  She said she doesn’t really mind the massive attention her home draws as the majority of the picture-takers are all very respectful.  🙂  She also told us that some filming of Juno did take place inside of the house, which was redecorated slightly for the movie, and that she and her family even had to relocate to a hotel for a brief period of time during the shoot.  She also got to meet actors Ellen Page and Michael Cera, whom she said were both extremely nice. 🙂  Love it!

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location!  🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: Bleeker’s house from Juno is located at 3961 36 Avenue West in Vancouver.