Paul Rudd Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters | GQ

I know you've probably edited this out so that people can't hear what you just said so I'll just repeat what you said for the people that are watching this right now which you said and correct me if I'm wrong Ant-Man is the most powerful important character in all of the MCU and the biggest uh and best Avenger is that right well he said it on me but I'll go with that [Music] Anchorman it's called Sex Panther by odion it's illegal in nine countries well I played Brian fantana in Anchorman he's the field reporter and he has Geraldo Rivera kind of look and a whole bunch of unearned confidence as do all of those guys in that Newsroom unearned confidence and they're all kind of dumb where the hell's a suit store we've been walking for 45 minutes brick I thought you said this was a shortcut fantastic Ryan fantana's guy is pretty impressed with himself or likes to present himself that way but is you know just staggeringly insecure and uh trying his hardest to look like the smoothest dude out there it's rare to read a script that it's just so fun to read just you that you want to reread it for pleasure and certainly with comedies I did that with wet Hot American Summer and then I did that again with Anchorman I thought those were the two funniest scripts sixty percent of the time works every time that doesn't make sense and they were funny for similar reasons and their absurdity and how meta certain things were and how it was so unlike everything else probably why they both had trouble getting made and the reception was confusion for a lot of people but Anchorman was one that I just thought oh my God this is the funniest craziest most specific story Will Ferrell and Adam McKay they write together it's it's just Bliss era so it was a while before they I was cast in it I think in a few months and I was just on the phone every few days with my Asians going and you heard anything it's not in the early way that I am but I was with that we met before we started filming to rehearse improvise some scenes or or just kind of Riff Off of what was in the script I had had experience with improvisation but never on a big Studio movie I mean I was pleasantly surprised when we started shooting and then will might just go off in some direction and I'm not prepared for or McKay would be behind the monitor yelling out lines you know he and will had worked together obviously in on SNL and they had a way of doing things and Judd Apatow was a producer on it and Judd had a way of kind of working in this style so we would always do what was in script but then we'd start kind of messing around it was a whole new way of working on a big budget movie and it was thrilling there are so so many times in Anchorman and scenes that I had such clear memories of laughing I didn't expect will when he said I'm proud of you fellas you all kept your head on a swivel and that's what you got to do when you find yourself in a vicious cockfight that's not in the scrap script or anything I and I was like took me by surprise you don't want to laugh when you're in someone's take because you don't want to make something unusable and if it's really funny and then somebody laughs and you can't use it it's it's really annoying and so there's always a pressure not to laugh that being said I think this scene that we laughed the hardest it was the first time I think creating the crew was getting a little annoyed because we just couldn't get through it which was a scene of all of us sitting around a table plotting how we were going to take down Veronica Corningstone and will is asking brick what he's eating and brick says oh it's one of those delicious Falafel hot dogs with cinnamon and bacon on top what do you mean one of those those don't exist I mean that's a used coffee filter with cigarette butts on it and I remember looking at it and it was coffee grass but it was like chocolate cake a little like coffee a real coffee filter like a cigarette butt a wrapper and then a dime and every time Corel would take a bite of it it was so repulsive we'd all start laughing we'd have to do it again and then the build up became funny because will would then say how we break what is that you're eating and as soon as you just come by by the way brick if he didn't even get out what are you eating he said it was the pause and then noticing and then we'd all just start laughing 40 Year Old Virgin you know when you're like you grab a woman's breast and it's and you you feel it and it feels like a bag of sand when you're touching it bag of sand you know what I mean why don't we just play you want to just steal the cards what are you talking about Steve had this sketch that he had done at Second City that he'd written about a 40 year old virgin actually the sketch was It was kind of recreated in that poker scene but it's a bunch of guys that are sitting around kind of telling Tales out of school about how you know women they've been with things they've done and one guy who's like oh yeah and it becomes clear that he's never ever been with a woman you know and that turned into the movie you're a virgin I am shut up how does that happen Abby now works with Judd a few times we'd spend a lot of time before adding things to the script filming improvisations that would eventually make their way into the script you know by the time you start shooting one of those movies you have a 200 and some odd page script when it came time to actually film sometimes we would take it upon ourselves to start improvising did you ever see a school of rock yeah well this is uh it's called School of you know oh it's like it that's nice Judd would say all right do more of that keep go back and say that he'll yell outlines and we'll be in the middle of scene we'll just repeat what he says or maybe another writer will say something and they become these kind of collaborative kind of jam sessions really and when something really Cooks like when it's really when when it's working you can tell and it's thrilling because nobody including us like knows exactly what it is we're gonna say or what's going to happen or where it's going to go to hopefully find a few moments here and there because there's a lot of you know most of it you'll never use and you wouldn't want to use it cool just the one right here right Hi how are you so this is your first time getting body walks when Steve was getting waxed in that scene he really was so the girl who actually did it said that her family owned a salon she did this and I was like I don't think that was true I don't think she'd ever done it like one of those things where it's like an actor hire an actor was like can you ride a horse I can ride a horse can you exit chest I can totally wax a chest you that one hurt that one hurt just as much the first one that's great man you know we were playing into it obviously I don't know if that's if it's true Romney really did get queasy and wanted to leave but I mean it really was like you could tell it was painful we set up like five cameras because once you know you did it you weren't gonna go back do it again yeah Steve's hilarious and he knew how to scream and make it funny and you're coming up with jokes on the Fly too I mean I think just a pattern which he was waxed it's like he did look like a pumpkin so then it's like you look like a mano Lantern this is not a good look for me you look like a mano Lantern thank you very much there's always this kind of somebody with a pen off to the side writing things or sometimes you don't want to say what you're gonna say and you don't tell anybody if it works it works and if it doesn't it doesn't I love you man I'm glad you called we get home safe pistol you got it jobin I'm sorry what all right first work with Jason on knocked up and I knew Jason also because he'd worked with Judd way before me and and this way of working I think we found that we enjoyed working with each other that way John Hamburg had written this script and I remember thinking this premise is brilliant I can't believe this hasn't been done I'm just like a buddy film but it's really kind of in the structure of a romantic comedy John met with both Jason and I at the same time like yeah let's do this this is this would be really I think would be a blast it was so much fun doing that movie and there was such a such a joyous feel on it I think because Jason and I like started we could complete each other's senses and as far as any kind of joke or any kind of dumb little thing that somebody might think of the other guy wouldn't bat an eye and take it go with it in some other direction you're wearing a tuxedo think James Bond all right give me give me some James Bond no it just looks like you're pointing at me I think we both really loved the characters we were playing I loved playing that character awkward insecure she thought all that stuff is really fun to play probably comes a little too easy to me because I relate to it too much [Music] how's that feel Rush was in the script and the reason was because John Hamburg when he was in high school had a band and Rush was his that was the the band [Music] you know both Jason and I knew Russian loved Russian this would be the perfect band that these guys would share a love of this band and then it was just so fortuitous because while we were shooting the movie Rush was on tour and they came to LA and they had two shows and there was a day in between each show and they said all right yeah we can come by we'll shoot a scene you know I probably hear it a little less now than I did at one point in my life but I think more than any other thing yeah I slapped the base is probably the line that also has just walked down the street and I'll hear somebody yell it from somewhere slap at the bass Mommy you're slapping the best man there you go slap at that [Applause] Bassa please don't do that or somebody else you know let the rain go Slide the base I know I've met a few few bass players in my life that want to strangle me like dude you ruined my life that the joke Clueless hey James Bond America we drive on the right side of the road I am you tried driving in platforms look I gotta get back to school uh wanna practice parking what's the point everywhere you go has valet when I first read the script for clueless I thought okay this is going to be another movie about a bunch of kids and seem pretty smart I was really kind of into it as I was reading it and I thought all the characters were unique I had been asked to read for Josh for that for the part that I played but I when I went into the audition I said you know this part's really something really funny about this part that I I'd love to try for that one they said sure read for whatever whatever you want but I said well Murray's really funny and then they said well actually that's an African-American part I said okay well then I won't refill that one but uh then they said what would you would you read for Josh the one that you got the one he was supposed to read for in first place so well of course I would I just got here and already you're playing couch Commando hey in some parts of the universe maybe not in Contempo casual but in some parts it's considered cool to know what's going on in the world preparation that I did for John I went to college and I think I just lifted most of my own clothes for that movie some of those clothes that I was wearing with causes on it that was my Amnesty International shirt and it was my KU ad the having a bit of a goatee kind of growing it in and having it for a little bit then that was gone hey granola breath you got something on your chin growing a goatee well that's good you don't want to be the last one at the coffee house without Jim pukes very true to I think my own college experience audience so I was certainly lucky enough to make it through several rounds and get cast in that movie can you imagine the nerve of that guy I mean making you worry like that he's the one that screwed up and then he goes and blames us I want to say that scene on the top of the stairs we were kind of working on it as we were filming it that day I was very self-conscious afterward are you saying you care about me Josh as far as that kiss goes I think my manager at the time after when the movie came out and said oh I was not good he said I did not do that very well so I'm like hey you weren't there how would you know it's a weird job when you're hired and part of your job is to kiss somebody and I was very aware I was kissing the girl from the Aerosmith that he goes and that there was going to be a lot of dudes who are going to be very jealous of me I was very aware of that Knocked Up what's so great about bubbles they float you can pop them I mean I get it I get it I wish I liked anything as much as my kids like bubbles that's sad when we were working on the script Judd and Leslie had bitten married and together for a long time has had my wife and I have been together for a long time up until that point you know Jed wanted to hear things from my life and my marriage and things that we you know we were dealing with and being a young parent there were certain things like I never when my wife was pregnant I didn't read the baby books and we got into an argument about it she took it as a hostile gesture which I totally understand retrospect I said what did the cavemen do without what to expect what you're expecting and I told all the suggesting that was funny and then it's in the movie Now Is Seth's character you didn't even read the baby books I didn't read the baby book what's gonna happen how did anyone ever give birth without a baby book that's right the ancient Egyptians engraved What to Expect When You're Expecting on the pyramid walls I forgot about that and when my wife and I saw the movie cheese she's like oh so this is an interesting documentary we're watching right now I literally am at a point where I don't know what I can say so I'm the bad guy because I'm trying to protect our kids from child molesters and mercury and you're cool because you don't give a yeah yeah is that it pretty much God you're an it was the first time that we had worked together Leslie and I and I think the very first scene that we filmed together was when we're in the bathroom foreign and then we did we got into a fight I'm just really constipated do you really want to well now and Leslie is such a good actress I went home that night I was like oh my God I think Leslie is really mad at me I think that she I think she maybe hates me and really kind of rattled me a little bit somehow I got back and the next day Leslie came over to me and she goes I heard you think that I'm mad at you I said I'm just I'm I didn't I hope not because I didn't I didn't want to upset you she goes of course not I don't hate you my God I hate Judd you know oh yeah no we're we're gonna have a blast there are five different types of chairs in this hotel room holy what are they all doing and these are five different types of chairs get them out of here man set design had there was it was like a hotel room they were cherished around I thought like how do you act like you're peeking on mushrooms or how I like it isn't like drunk or high or something like I don't know what do we think shoot let's let's just put all the chairs together and then like all right now go guys oh man we knew we were gonna get to this idea that can you believe like that somebody would ever want to be with you to marry you so we had an end point I think we knew we were gonna kind of say which was about how we would get there we didn't really know and those chairs would just happen to be props in the set that they had built and so we just pushed them all together and we just kind of started rolling it can't accept love you don't know what it is love the most beautiful shining warming thing in the world you can't accept it I have to go to this other chair oh this is a better energy [Music] it's 40. [Music] what is she doing okay oh my God oh my God oh my gosh don't do that what am I doing don't fart in the bed you know it's I've known Judd and Leslie and the girls for years and I knew them when they were babies really and I went over to the house one night I was just like I have dinner and see what their night is like you know how their evening kind of goes they're like all right I'm gonna go put mod to bed or Iris to bed and read him a story or I was just kind of an observer but I also knew them so it was a yeah we spent a lot of time together up until that point so it wasn't like I was some stranger kind of taking notes at the end of their bed it all sounds so Daniel day-lewisy doesn't it I'm gonna go put the kids to bed I did by the way I remember going to their room and they had a machine that projected stars on their ceiling and they're like oh yeah they don't sleep without this without this Star machine on then I went back and I ordered two star machines off the outside and I still have they're great to build tree houses and play with sticks nobody plays with sticks you and Charlotte can have a lemonade stand They Kick the Can look for dead bodies it's fun that's fun to do get a tire and then just take a stick and run down the street with it nobody does that crap it's 2012. you don't need technology no technology it was a weird feeling to do these scenes where I'm acting opposite his wife with his kid standing there and he's off you know filming it all he's very aware of how strange I mean I kept trying to think how are his children processing this is this healthy is what we're doing here right now safe and good with time and distance I could say yes and it was a really fun experience I had a great time working on the movie I've had a great time working actually on all the movies with Jack I think they've been really really fun and they're as far as creatively I think they're some of the most fulfilling creative experiences because of the collaboration because of the freedom that everybody feels I think and what they can do and what they can maybe try and come up with Wet Hot American Summer you're gonna clean that up oh yeah I will um I just got I don't have time right now clean it up and come to my office for the meeting I gotta are they making Wet Hot American Summer was a blast it was the first thing but I think that a lot of the people that were working on it it really spoke to our our kind of collective sensibility and senses of humor hey my girl write my thoughts in it every day Oh you mean a journal hero kind of knew each other a little bit it was like all these kind of New York actors and improv comedy and the old comedy C and we filmed it at a summer camp we had to leave in the middle of production because the camp was closed for a week because somebody hired it out to have a bar mitzvah you know we all slept at the camp it rained every day so whoever wasn't filming had to go into town which was about 30 minutes away and buy beer so that when the days filming was done everyone we all hung out we wouldn't have computers like we don't want to like cell phones really it was just it so we were everyone was just there and also if you weren't working you went and watched other people filming their scenes so there was a real kind of camaraderie and affiliate like a collective it was like being at summer camp and so to do that and then work on material that we all found funny that we kind of couldn't believe was actually getting made and we all kind of knew people are not going to get this but I think that people who do get it or will find it's funny we'll find it really funny what is it you have barbecue sauce all over your obviously anything I work on I don't know I don't know if something's good or bad I really don't I always go in with like the best intentions but I do know that like when wet Hot American Summer was done I'm like this movie's funny I know it's funny I'm and not I'm laughing at the parts of just like when they jump out of the truck and they run over to the side of the building and stand there just stand there and it makes the cup [Music] I just dying I think that's like the funniest thing and so that when you know yeah when it came out people like well this is just seems like a bunch of Hit and Miss jokes and it doesn't really add up that was the first time I'm like no I actually well I I don't agree with that opinion Forgetting Sarah Marshall are you uh are you Chuck oh man you know they won't change that that's my Mainland name my Hawaiian name is kunu oh cool sorry yeah ah it's all good does kunu have some like cool Hawaiian meaning it means Chuck I'd worked with Jason Siegel a couple of times I love Jason Stoller again all the people I've worked with in the past and there really wasn't much in that script necessarily about that character and Jason said come down and play a surf instructor you know if you ever go to these resorts in Hawaii there's always somebody that is working there and they're super cool and they're gonna take you out and teach you how to surf or teach you how to scuba dive or whatever it is and you spend half a day with him and it's like this person has really got everything kind of figured out what a great life the cool thing and then he spent a little longer and you learn a little bit more about their lives and there's the running from something of broken in some way and this guy has a daughter it's like yeah you know I haven't seen her a while but that's that's cool she's on her own Journey which is these these kinds of sad statements I think I was in my 30s I was like so I was 44 I remember thinking like that's super funny really old 44. I mean if you had to put a number on it I guess I'd be 44. and so a lot of those scenes I mean all of them really I know what I was gonna say what I was gonna do and then we're all we all figuring out like we're all there on the beach like what if we just keep get up that's too much no down like there's no Rhyme or Reason to anything the guy is saying yeah we were weighing them Ant-Man would you like some sugar yeah thanks you know what I'm okay my friend Edgar Wright he'd written a script with Joe Cornish he asked if I would be interested in playing this part I thought it'd be fun to try and play a role that so different than anything that had really played I mean the idea of a superhero was really intriguing and great I mean these things are seen all over the world and by all ages you know this that's a somewhat new experience for me hey you're cute foreign that was a lot scarier a second ago the first two were more Standalone smaller kind of separate from from everything else it didn't really have the huge spectacle maybe of some of the other big Marvel movies and and this one kind of does in this new version in Ant-Man and the WASP quantumania it is such a huge film I mean just the scope of it the scale of it and how it's kind of kicking off this new phase with the introduction of Kang What's it gonna be Batman you know one of the most incredible experiences I've had working on the Marvel films is getting to meet Stan Lee and one of the things that he told me was how happy he was that they were making Ant-Man as a film he felt in the comics it was very tough to really gauge the scale if you're drawing hey man you can't really draw other things at the proper scale so audiences were going to finally see Ant-Man in the way that he always envisioned Dan man [Music] to working within the MCU and these films you do feel a part of a collective in a way there's something pretty great about that you know when you're an actor it can be kind of a solitary existence and when you feel like you're kind of going through it with a group of people it makes it fun I feel like real solid friendships form I kind of can't believe that it's been now almost nine years is that right Selena yeah

Channel: GQ

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Keywords: anchorman, ant-man, clueless, forgetting sarah marshall, gq, gq magazine, gq paul rudd, i love you man, iconic characters, knocked up, paul rudd, paul rudd anchorman, paul rudd ant man, paul rudd ant-man, paul rudd comedy, paul rudd films, paul rudd funny, paul rudd gq, paul rudd i love you man, paul rudd iconic characters, paul rudd interviww, paul rudd judd apatow, paul rudd marvel, paul rudd movies, the 40-year-old virgin, this is 40, wet hot american summer

Id: WYIW5P4q5fM

Length: 26min 7sec (1567 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 09 2023