Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist - Paul Rudd

Episode Date: October 13, 2019

Paul Rudd has won over fans for nearly 25 years as the likable, seemingly regular guy in Hollywood. In this week’s “Sunday Sitdown,” Willie Geist gets together with the actor to talk about that nice guy reputation and his lengthy career, from his breakout role in “Clueless” to a string of Judd Apatow comedies to Marvel’s “Ant-Man,” and his new Netflix series “Living With Yourself” where we get a double dose of Paul Rudd. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another episode of the Sunday Sit Down podcast. My thanks as always for clicking and listening along. You are going to love who I've got for you today. The great Paul Rudd. You can't meet a man, woman, or child walking down the street or your family or a circle of friends who doesn't love Paul Rudd. It all started with Clueless, 1995. Everybody fell in love with Rudd. And now it takes us all these years later to a new series on Netflix called Living with Yourself,

where Paul plays both of the lead characters. So he plays himself. And then he plays another version of himself and actually acts opposite himself with like quick comic timing. It's incredible how they do it. And we get into that in the interview. I'm joined as always by the producer of this fine podcast, Maggie Law.

Hi, really? How you doing, Maggie? Good. How are you? Also, the producer of this very fine interview and many of our very fine interviews on Sunday today, Brittany mania. How you doing, Britt?

I'm good. I think we were both pretty excited about this one. Yes. Everybody loves Paul Rudd. Yes. And there's just so much fertile ground. I mean, you can start. We talk about his days as a bar mitzvah DJ, which he was really, he went deep on that

because we had the footage that you dug up that I was able to analyze with him. Yes, we have 17 minutes of footage here at NBCUs that we went through. Yes. That's impressive. Bat mitzvah. He's got Doc Martins, half tucks and shorts. Yeah. It's a pretty good look.

A yellow tucks. Yeah, yellow tucks. Yeah, he stokes in the interview. He says, I think that was the birth of the grunge movement. With the Doc Martin's in the shorts, it started at a bat mitzvah. He loved that. Somewhere in L.A. But Maggie, it's hard even to pick a favorite Paul Rudd movie.

There's the whole, there's clueless, of course, which a lot of people go to. But then the whole Judd-Apatoe catalog of Anchorman, 40-year-old version, this is 40, knocked up. I still think Anchorman's one of my favorite. Brian Fantan. I was going to say. And he said, you know, he sees people. people on the street still wearing things that have the quotes on. It's like, it's such a classic.

It's really his. It is. And that was Brittany. He talks about the left turns in his career. Yes. Ant Man was a more recent one because all of a sudden, Paul Rudd, beloved in comedies, is now a superhero and a Marvel star. But he says the big turn was when he met Judd Apatow. Yes.

Sort of something that he's described as a left turn in many different ways. It's weird, though, because that's what you associate with him. Like, you associate him with these comedies. Right. I thought it was so interesting that he's like a classically trained, dramatic actor. And by the way, British parents. Nobody knows. Oh, I didn't know that.

Yes. Oh, my God. British-born parents. Yes. Very interesting. His dad worked in the airline industry and they moved around a lot. But got it. And they eventually settled near Kansas City, which is where he grew up.

So, Brittany, let's try before we get into the conversation to set the stage a little about what the show is. I was going to say what is living with yourself. Yes. And it's Rudd opposite Rudd. Yes. So living with yourself is, I would say, sort of has these sci-fi aspects to it. He's a man, depressed, you would say, not happy with his life. He tries to change. I don't want to, you know, I don't want to give it away. He tries to change his life. And in the process, he clones himself. And now there are two of his characters named Miles, two miles, one job, one wife, one life. How do they navigate? Yes. How do they navigate it?

Exactly. I mean, that's kind of all you need to know. There you go. The hijinks that ensue. But it's also like a little dark, funny, very funny, but also a little dark. In the first scene of the series, I'm sitting down before I interview him to watch this episode, a hand punches through the ground. Someone's been buried alive. And that person gets out, I believe, I want to say nude.

I'm not sure, but I think nude. I think he. Or in a diaper or something. I think he is wearing a diaper, yeah. Inside a plastic bag. In other words, this person has been left for dead and buried, but this person was alive. And then we're off to the races from there. And trust me, it's funny somehow from there.

Okay. I'll take your word for it. Obviously, a ton to get to with the great Paul Rudd right now on the Sunday Sit Down podcast. All right, Paul, thanks for doing this, man. Appreciate it. Just talking about the new series, which obviously is unlike anything you've ever done in your career, probably unlike anything people have seen. What grabbed you about it when you even read it on the page? Well, there were many things.

I loved the idea of playing two characters. Playing in scenes opposite myself was a new experience. I thought it was really funny, but in an existential way. I thought it was dramatic and moving. I could relate to the material, the themes of the show. I finished the first episode, just kind of read it. And they were also all written, which isn't normally the case. that I could just keep going and reading scripts.

Normally they have one or two, and then they write them as they go. But here were eight contained episodes that were short and really riveting, and every time I finished one, I want to read the next one. And so I thought, well, that's probably the way it would be if you watched it.

And hopefully that's the case. Well, it is. Having watched it, it is the case. All right, very good. You're the first person I know that has even seen this. Is that true? Yeah, I don't know anybody. Really?

Yeah. Your wife hasn't seen it. I won't let her watch it. No, my wife has seen it. My wife is. First person outside of your family. Right. Okay.

Right. Good. That sounded bad. I won't let her watch it. Don't say anything else about it. You just don't let her watch. No. The first person I know that is seeing it outside of my family and agents and stuff.

So how do you explain to somebody who hasn't watched it, which is almost everyone, what this show is about. Blank page, you say, here's what the show is. I guess it's about this idea that if we're presented, we're presented with the opportunity

to make the best version of ourselves, would we take it? I'm thinking of this on the fly. This might not really be what it's about. Sounds good so far. I'm going to say with confidence, like I know what I'm talking about. I know the themes of the show.

I know about it, but to describe it quickly is, I really should have planned ahead. I'll just go with it. Knowing this question was going to be asked. I think that it's kind of this dilemma. Is the best version of ourselves if we were able to get that what we want it? Is it really the best?

And it deals with themes of how we feel about ourselves and liking ourselves and relating to the people that we love in our lives. we do it in a good way and a healthy way and um uh and that's what it's about in a nutshell there you go i think you nailed that thank you there you go thank you it's horrible no i that is actually what it's about because you may think you want to know the best version of yourself and then we actually see it it might create some conflict between the first version i've had those i think we've all had those moments where during a day i'm like i feel clear in my thinking and uh um i'm i'm present in conversation or I could and it's temporary. It's like, oh, I'd like to hold on to this where I feel

rooted. I mean, it's very temporary with me. I've only felt it a few times in my life. But I think, I, you know, this, I feel like all cylinders are firing. And, and yeah, is that something that you can sustain? Not really. Because Miles is not in a great place when we, when we meet him. No, he's taken some real shots in life. And, you know, one of the things that I really liked about this show was that I would read the script and then a few episodes later see it from another point of view, another perspective, and it made me reevaluate what I had seen. I think that Tim Greenberg wrote the script did it in a very clever way, and it runs throughout the whole show. You see different characters' perspectives of similar events. But

I loved, I've already kind of gone off of what your question actually even was, but there were certain things I loved. I loved that about it. I loved that as I was reading it thinking, okay, we have now set up this idea that there are two versions of this person, and is this going to be just stressful? And I'm just going to watch this whole thing. And then in the last episode, the shoe is going to drop. everyone's going to. And that's not actually what happens. And when I saw that that wasn't happened,

that's not what happened. And it comes out kind of quickly. I'm just like, oh, well, now I'm really invested. What is this thing going to be? And I never stopped when I read it. What was the original question? Will I tell me again. You answered it. You actually answered two questions. You went on to this next question. Great. Very economical. I felt like I knew what the next question was. You looked ahead. You looked over the horizon. Well, I just finished episode two, and it's clear there's some turn about to happen

as he stands outside the door with a rock in his hand and we get the credits. Yeah. Just purely as a mechanical acting question. I will give you an answer as a mechanical actor. How did you carry out these scenes? How did you act opposite yourself? I mean, I think the first time we really get it is in the first episode when you're riding in the car, And it's a comedic scene.

And you have this banter where your timing is great with yourself. And then from there, there are a bunch more of them. There are fight scenes. How do you begin to act that way? That was one of the challenges I was really looking forward to, but I didn't know exactly how to do it. Dayton and Ferris, Valerie Ferris and Jonathan Dayton, married a couple of great directors, who I really wanted to work with for my entire career. they did the movie Little Miss Sunshine

a lot of people know that as well as other things they did they're great directors and real artists and they had never done anything quite like this either and so we all went into it blind

a bit it's not an totally uncommon thing to see actors working opposite themselves I mean I think a moon or something you know and so So there are different things I learned along the ways. There are different ways to do it.

In a lot of things that people do, they'll work opposite an actor and dressed as the person, and then they'll go around. And I found that to not be the way. I didn't do it that way. I found that, and we discovered it early on, that for me, the best way was to just act opposite air. but I recorded both characters, audio. So I would do the scene. I would rehearse the scene as both characters,

knowing where I wanted to stand, how I wanted to build it. And then whatever character was driving the scene, I would film that one first. Okay. Then, after we got it, and there would be somebody off playing the responses of the other character while I was acting that, And so I was just looking at tape marks and picturing eyelines.

Then I would watch the take that I had done when I had to switch over and do the other character, say, oh, I moved here on that line. Or I said this and looked out the window on that line. And I would remember the words and my choreography. Wow. And then I would go back. We would figure out where the eyelines were, so it looked like I was looking at myself and play the scene in my ear.

I would remember on what line I was, oh, I picked up a can of Coca-Cola and I'd look and follow it. And so it became choreography while I was doing the scene. And it was a little weird, but I got into the flow of it. And crazy labor intensive, because we're not talking about one fluke scene. It's like the thrust of the show was you talking to your phone. No, it was all there, you know, there was a camera called a techno dolly that is on a computer. It's a kind of computer. It's on a track.

It'll go through the same motions in the exact same way that you can overlay two scenes. So on, you know, there would be a three-minute scene that's a one shot where I am in both. There's movement and I'm in both, I'm in the frame as both characters and engaged with the other guy. And it was, you know, technically it was really challenging. But it was also exciting when we got it. Was it weird, though? It'd be like if you and I were doing this interview and you're not there. and I'm asking questions to that window.

Yeah. Did that feel weird at the beginning at least? Not, I mean, it is weird because you're, it's all reaction and I'm not reacting to anything. But I have my voice in my ear and I know where I want to take the scene. And I've talked about it with the directors and talked about with the writer and we're all kind of coming at it from the same place. But I have had now experience, certainly like within the Marvel. world where I have been acting opposite something and it's not really there. Tennis ball.

The tennis ball's on tape, you know, whatever it is. And you just kind of, you know, you throw yourself into it and act like, you know, it isn't weird and it doesn't come across that. Well, you, again, anticipated my question about that camera because sometimes when I've seen these, it looks a little green screeny or I know I'm looking at the back of some other actor's head, but this really matches. Yeah. Yeah, there's only one episode where we did use people dressed as me because it was impossible not to because there's some stuff that happens.

And I won't tell you. You haven't seen that. But there was one episode where we had to use some doubles and we actually used a few. But it was cool. And it was also, you know, one of the things that I liked about it was it wasn't so extreme. You know, the challenge was in the nuance of these characters that it wasn't like the bad version looks so terrible, and then the new version is so, that it's the complete opposite where if somebody ran into the new version, people would say, hey, you look great, what happened? Did you lose weight? Did you? Right. The differences had to be kind of subtle enough that you wouldn't be surprised if you were talking to the old one or the new one.

But if you're watching the show, it's very clear which one is which, if they're not both on the screen. That's right. It's just enough. So the old one's a little slouchier and a little more haggard. You did things with wardrobe, with, yeah, with posture, with voice, those kinds of things are, yeah, it's fun to work on. Are you the kind of guy who this project comes up, you've done all the comedy, you've done all the Judd Apatatatine? I have this monster, huge, ant-man thing. And you say, okay, I want to do something that's more serious.

more dramatic now? Do you sort of look at your career that way when this came up? You know, it's fine. When I started, I wasn't doing comedies that much. I would do them. It was occasionally, kind of my first break was in Clueless, and that was a romantic comedy. But I was also doing plays, and I was doing other things that were not funny at all. things took a turn when I kind of went into the Apatau world and I love it. I mean, I'm a comedy fanatic. And I haven't differentiated drama and comedy as much as maybe somebody else. I tend to think they coexist.

And my favorite stuff seems to fall into both genres. But at first, I think when I was starting off, I thought, I don't want to be pigeonholed. I don't want to get typecasts and then along the way, I just started really enjoying what I was doing and enjoying the people I was working with. And so I kind of would judge each thing on its own merits. And a lot of times, they're comedies, and they're fun to work on. And I liked the idea, certainly, that this checked many boxes.

I mean, it is funny, but it's, you know, it's funny in a way that almost black mirror has some humor to it. And it's got a very strange kind of tone to it. A lot of that is also John and Val. You know, there's such talented directors that the tone of it all is really created by them. Although it was so well written and it seemed clear when I was reading it that this was, yeah, this is steeped in sadness, in reality, in hyper-reality,

it's got an existential bent to it, it's high concept, yet the themes of this are so universal and relatable. I liked all of the, all the aspects of it. Yeah, I was saying it before, it's like the minute it gets a little dark, they kind of pull you out a little bit with the comedy. It has, it balances both of those things. Yeah. nicely. You mentioned your start as an actor. I don't think most people realize because of the movies they love you from that you were a stage actor doing 12th night and you studied drama at Oxford and all the rest of it. So where did that acting thing come from for you when you were growing up in Kansas City? How did that start? I think that I was always interested in the arts.

and I used to draw a lot. I thought maybe I'd want to be an animator when I was a kid. I loved movies. I loved comedians. I loved, I didn't go to the theater a bunch when I was a kid. And it wasn't part of my life. Neither of my parents did it. But I thought about it before, like, where did it germinate?

And, you know, I suppose on some very base level it has to do with being the oldest child and then I had a sit my sister was born a couple years later and I wasn't the only show in town anymore and I thought oh you know if I I like the attention if I do a cute little dance my parents say good job Paul and it's probably manifested in some way and probably the ways of many actors but that morphs and there's lots of other reasons I used to love listening to uh Steve Martin's comedy records I loved comedians. I used to move around a lot. Growing up, my dad would always get job transfers. So before I was 10 years old, I'd lived in four different states.

I'd gone to so many different schools. I was always a new kid in school. And maybe comedy and that kind of thing helped me deal on some deep level and performing. And so I was always drawn to comedy. But then when I was about 16, 17 years old and thought, what do I really want to do? I thought more about acting than I thought about stand-up or Second City or any of that because I liked drama as well. And I also thought that's the way to do it.

Right. And when I kind of committed myself to this and really wanted to study it and learn how to be a actor, I got to college, went the opposite way and really went into classical theater and thought, all these actors that I love, it seems as if this is their background. Right. They really know what they're doing. And so at a young age, in my early 20s, I thought, I want to have a career that sustains itself that lasts a long time and I feel like the way to do it is to do theater and really

learn it and not worry about trying to, you know, get on being a big hit or something like that. And so that I spent the majority of my 20s and 30s, I still live in New York doing plays, and trying to go back and forth, which God knows why and how, but that is what happened. I was able to maybe work on a movie and then go do a play. And now it's just been movies. That sounds terrible. There's been a few years. Yeah.

Yeah. Pretty much just move. For the moment. You'll be back on the stage. Oh, yeah, yeah. You'll be back. Yeah, yeah. Well, maybe.

H.O.'s a week's killing. So did you, so when did you realize you could do this for a living? Because I know you were, like, working on jobs, figuring out, I won't go into the glazing of the hams. You've talked a lot about that. Yeah. But where I will go is the bar mitzvice DJ years because I was reviewing. some footage this morning.

You had a certain look about you. Yeah. It was a yellow tux up top, but then a grunge on the bottom, like a short with a combat boot? That was just that bat mitzvah. There are other ones. You know, my hair, you said, I used to have really long hair. Yeah.

And then I cut it, but I just kind of like cut it. So it was all still over the longer than short. Yeah, it was not a good look. But I remember, Everyone would dress in tuxedos, and it just seemed, the whole thing seemed so corny. And this kind of, all of the wedding, you know, DJs and bar mitzvah DJs. It's a small pond, you know, it's small group. Sure.

And they were also all about 20 years older than me. Right. And I was just like, this whole thing is ridiculous. I did that job for about a year because I was going to school and I could work on the weekends. Right. Because, you know, you don't have many bar mitzvahs on a Wednesday night. And so I was able to work, yeah, as that on the week as to go to school during the week. But I really went totally rebellious and went with a crazy outfit.

Talks with shorts, Doc Martins. Oh, yeah. Hey, man. Red hot chili peppers did it. It's the 90s. That's right. She had a flannel t-shirt or a button down outside around your waist. And the long hair, yeah.

Oh, you had it all. And this was even a couple years before that. Oh. Yeah. I'd like to think that I started the grunge movement with my barmets for a DJ look. Something tells me that's not quite true. I also noticed you were down in the crowd. You weren't one of these elitist DJs who stayed up at his booth.

You got to mix it up. Who's going to hold the limbo pole? Doesn't hold itself. Which you literally did. Yeah. Yeah. So I asked that only to say, so what's the jump from wedding DJ to a guy who's moved to L.A.? and is working in L.A.

Consistently. Well, this was in L.A. That I was doing this. Because they were going to an acting school in Pasadena at the time. And the jump was, well, there were things in it about that job that I thought, this is like groundwork. Because I would be doing some of these parties and I'd feel as if it was soul crushing. And I didn't want to be there half the time. But I had to seem like I was really engaged and into it and kind of keep the thing going.

Right. And be sharp with responses. And so I thought, oh, this is like a training ground in some way or another. And I would tell myself that as the tears would flow on the inside of my face. As your soul turned to dust on the inside. Yeah. So you did some TV. And then obviously you mentioned it.

Clueless was 1995 was like the big meet Paul Rudd kind of moment. You never could have imagined obviously what that was going to become, that people still talk about it and want remakes and all that. Are you amazed by the sort of cultural phenomenon that has been? I don't really think about it, but I mean, it's nice to be involved in something that has that kind of importance in a lot of people's lives. It's cool to be a part of something that lasts. Yeah.

It was the second movie I ever did. The first one I ever did was Halloween 6. Right. Which came out after Clueless. And I remember I told that to Scott Rudin, the producer of Clueless. And he said, ah, yes, the actor's nightmare. So, but, you know, that was a really amazing experience to work on that movie. driving on to the Paramount lot,

seeing those arches. We had come from a generation where those John Hughes films were so important to us. And it had been a few years since there had been kind of movies about high schoolers, you know, like kids. And so I remember all of us kind of talking

before we ever started shooting the movie. I think, well, it'd be really cool if, you know, this were to somehow, this movie would hold up, like, with those ones, that people might relate to it and think, and it turns out to be, you know, this cool. You think about that on everything you ever. Right. But it never really happens. Sometimes it does, though. And it did. The morning it came out, again, Scott Roodin, I'll never forget, it was, this is, that the reviews came out, pre-internet, so you don't, you don't know.

know if people are going to like it, you don't know what they're going to be. So everyone has a stack of kind of copies of newspapers. And in the morning it came out, at 7 in the morning, my phone rang. And it was Scott Rudin. He says, people like it. Looks like he's going to get hit. Don't get used to it. Click. Which is the case for most people. You get one. You get one. You get one. You've talked about Judd Apatow starting with Anchorman, sort of being a left turn in your life that maybe you didn't see coming. What did that movie and that relationship mean to you and to your career? Because it obviously followed with a bunch more after that. Yeah.

Collaborations with Judgment. I mean, getting to work on, getting to work on Anchorman was a total shift for also kind of the way that I worked. and on the material that I was working on. Before that, I had done this movie, Wet Hot American Summer, that within the comedy community had some weight to it. In the rest of the world, there was none. But when I met Adam McKay that he knew about, he's like, oh, yeah, Wet Hot American Summer and Sing with Judd.

And so I had done movies or worked on things where there was some improv involved. But the way that Will, Farrell, and Adam McKay kind of worked on this relationship that it established itself at SNL, there was a lot of kind of improvisation or people yelling out lines in the middle of a scene and then incorporating it. There was a sense of fun, a freedom, and an encouragement to say, that's really cool. Let's just let's roll. and I see where that goes. Even though there was a script, it was all written, the script was hilarious,

and Judd works in a similar way. So I never thought that there would be a studio movie that you could work this way out. Right. There's like, are we wasting film? And then that started to change. And so with Judd, it just so happened that I, same people, we would kind of work in the same way on material that we liked,

on things that were important to us, that we all kind of contributed to, on the script and every other way. And it was very creatively fulfilling. And it was also nice because none of us felt like we were spitting in the wind. People were going to the movies. Yeah. And Fantana has held up well through the years. You know, sex panther, Panther, Panda watch. It's all part of the lexicon. Even for a new generation, I can tell you.

I saw a guy wearing a baseball hat last week that said 60% of the time works every time. And they just think, wow, holds up. Yeah. People are still putting that on hats. New generation of fans. You've got this reputation, as you probably know, and it comes across in your characters, it's just being a good dude as being a nice guy.

And I love Leslie Mann. your frequent co-star has a great line about you where she says, Paul is very good looking, but he behaves like someone who is not. Meaning like, that's like. Like the backward, backhanded compliment Hall of Fame, right?

Well, just meaning that you're good, you're humble and... I thought you were going to say is the line and this is 40, which people think that I'm so nice, but I'm such a, you know... Yeah, right.

Right. That was in the movie. This is a real life line. I had to heard that. I hadn't heard that. So you hear that about yourself. Is that an uncomfortable thing to hear that you're like the good guy, the nice guy in Hollywood? I think it's nice to hear, you know, I don't want people not like me.

Right. But, you know, I don't think, I don't know how to respond to it if people say it. Right. Because you're just being yourself and if that's the way they see you, that's the way they see you. I guess, yeah. As you can see, I don't know. No, I know. Well, I hear it too, and you're like, I don't know.

What's the other way to be engaged? I'll tell you one thing. Like, when people are not nice to each other, it bums me out. Yeah. Or rude. Right. Like, come on, man. I was like it when people are polite.

Mm. One thing that hasn't changed for you through the years, 25 years or so, is your look, your face. Look, this is not normal, though. Well, you've got the beard going, a little longer hair. But surely you've seen there have been New York Times and magazines articles written about it. All right, right. What is the skincare regimen?

Is it a daily chemical peel? Is it surgeries? Is it black market skincare products? It's all of those. It's, you name it. Dark agreements with, again, I don't know how to respond. Have you ever looked at a picture of yourself? in clueless say, and said, oh, I look like that today.

Well, I don't see that. I mean, I can definitely see the difference. I feel the difference. Yeah, I don't. But it's, again, nice that, like, that is a thing that sometimes people will say that about me. But Keanu Reeves has us all Trump. He's got, he's holding that crown. And so I think we all just kind of sit and worship at the altar of Keanu Reeves.

You're nipping at his heels, though. You're close. A close second. Ant Man, 2015, that comes out. And we talked about a left turn with Judd-Apato. Here comes another left turn. Now you're a Marvel superhero. When that came across your desk, you thought, what? Because you were known a certain way in Hollywood. You're that Jud-A-A-Patow sort of type role. And I hear you're a little bit. comes Marvel. Well, you know, it's, again, you're saying, like, I know that I might be known as a certain thing, but I never kind of define myself in any of these genres or terms or ways.

I don't, I never think of it myself that way. I like to think that I want to hopefully have a long career where I'm doing lots of different things, you know, comedy, drama, whatever it is. You're all getting, you're getting in touch with all the same stuff. With comedy, you just kind of have to do it in a way that you can make a rhythm to it and that there's a laugh. But certainly like with this show, a lot of the comedy comes real pain. So whenever people say, oh, some comedian or an actor you've seen do comedies show up in a drama, it's like, wow, they did a kid, isn't that surprising? I always think, like, why?

but as far as what as as what Ant-man-Man. But what's different about it is the scope of it. Yeah, no, that is a very different thing. And I recognize that as being completely out of left field. That came about because it was originally conceived and was going to be directed by Edgar Wright. who is a friend of mine, and that's how I even got involved.

I met Kevin Feige and Lou Desposito around that time. Edgar eventually left the project. Peyton Reed came on to direct it, and the whole thing was such a, it was such a strange, crazy turn. But also, you know, Marvel, I wasn't thinking of it in terms of, of the Marvel scope of it all really, instead distill down to this, here is a superhero, but it's a real guy. And how can I just focus on the character and the dialogue and the story

and all of that in the same way? I'm not thinking of it in terms of the Marvel of it all versus like the Apatow of it all. It's like, oh, you know, or even clueless or any of it. It's all, you know, just playing a person. Right. But then once it goes to you know, up on the screen, the world sees it. And I'm sure there's an entirely new generation of people outside these doors who, when they see it, they go, hey, man. Well, almost everybody now.

It's a, you know, they're so visible. They're so huge all over the world. The Marvel films, and I've traveled to different countries. I've met lots of people. It's also the first thing that I've ever done that, like, kids really would watch. And so I've noticed a difference there. it's been nothing but great

I love it I love working with them I love the films the kind of the passion that so many people have for it you know I got to know Stan Lee it was so I was the whole thing was so unexpected

and has been a total ride also getting to know all the all of you know the other actors, which has been really cool. So weird, I went to, I'd never been to a Comic-Con or anything like that. And when I got the job at Ant Man, I went to, there's the big Comic-Con in San Diego, I didn't know anything like this. And so I had to go to kind of introduce the movie and introduce Peyton and all of, and Evangeline and Michael Douglas was, you know, big deal.

And we went on the same platform with the Avengers. And it's weird, having never been to a Comic-Con or seen anything like that, to do that with the Avengers, this is a little bit like at a music convention with the Beatles. It's like, yeah, if you're going to do it, try and do it this way, because it's a really wild experience. Right. And I knew that. I knew it was a big deal, but that was my first kind of window into, oh, wow, yeah, this is a

really big deal. And in the last however many years, it's only gotten bigger. And how gratifying for it to be so successful. Because you were kind of introducing, not to the Marvel universe, but to the world a new type of superhero, a new character they didn't know. It wasn't Batman, you know? Right, right.

Yeah, there was not a kind of a, there was a built-in fan base for Scott Lang and for Ant-Man, but it wasn't that big. Very specific. It was a very specific. And, you know, and I would tell people, I'm playing this, part. It's a superhero called Ant Man. And I would explain what Ant Man did and the name

Ant Man and people would kind of raise an eyebrow. But now people know. And that's, yeah, it's cool. And has it given you some cred with your kids now, too? I don't know if it's given me any more credit than I would have had, which right now is, you know, just dad, which is good. Like I, but they get to watch it. But we don't watch it. with their friends. Oh. It's with some of their friends who are big Marvel fans, it's probably, it's cool to to them.

They used to come over and kind of walk past, you know, they go, man, when the friends come over? Yeah, they still walk past. And now they just want to know what Tom Holland is like. Stick around to hear more from Paul Rudd on the Sunday Sit Down podcast, including what it was like to be a part of the Friends phenomenon as the show celebrates its 25th anniversary. Welcome back to the Sunday Sit Down podcast.

Now more of my conversation with Paul Rudd. So sort of shoehorn between your clueless debut in the movies and then your move to work with Judd Apatow was, or a few seasons on Friends, 25th anniversary this year. What did that part in that role and being a part of that other phenomenon mean to you? Well, I always kind of felt like, you know, with that, I was a prop, really, on that show. I'm not, I'm not, I thought, oh, what an amazing, a little bit like this Marvel stuff where it's like,

what an incredible juggernaut of a thing to kind of catch a ride on it, get a seat on this train. But I never, ever thought, oh, I'm really a part of this. This is, I just didn't want to get in the way. Right. And I also didn't anticipate it because when I, When I did it, I was only supposed to do one or two episodes. And so I was never under a long contract or anything, but then they'd say,

well, we're thinking about writing another episode. Are you in two weeks? Are you free? Like, yeah, I am. And so it kind of just happened. And incredible experience. to just a little out of body, just to see how that works, to see what those Fridays were like,

to see what the cast did before a show, to hear just the craziness and the excitement of the crowd before a taping on a Friday. And I always felt like, oh, I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't be witness to this. This is their thing.

But they were, always very gracious. And it was a cool experience. It was an interesting experience. Work-wise, how they go about making a four-camera show. And it was also the first time I ever thought, you know, I was working on the very last episode. And I remember at the time, magazines were saying this is the week that the last episode was being taped. It was a news story. And I remember even in rehearsals that week looking around, the whole world wants to know what's happening in this sound stage right now and I can see it. I know what's happening and it felt wrong. Like you didn't deserve to see it. I shouldn't be there. No. No, it's a little bit like, I've said the past. It's like

you're watching somebody bathe. It's like, I should be looking at this. I am no, there's no way I should be allowed to watch this. Avert your eyes. Yeah. But then you're like, I can't tear them away. Matt LeBlanc. Thank you, man. That was great. Thanks for the time. I appreciate it. My big thanks to Paul Rudd for a great conversation.

His new series, Living with Yourself, premieres October 18th on Netflix. As you guys know, I have a little bit of a blind spot for some pop culture areas. One of them is friends. Yes. Never saw a second of friends until it was in reruns. I think I've seen every single episode, maybe 10 to 15 times. So I guess I didn't fully appreciate the Rudd significant. in the friend's story.

So thank you for leading me there. Yeah. Well, he ends up with one of the friends. Like, married. Yeah. Yeah. Leigha Cootro. Yeah.

He's a Cootro. Yeah. So he's like, I think of him as the seventh honorary friend because he's part of their lives now. Yeah. Definitely came in at the end. It's another case where it's good to have a great producer because I'm like, eh, I'm going to ask him about friends.

No one cares about friends. And he's like, that's all anyone cares about friends. Especially right now with the 25th anniversary. If you turn on your television, everything is 25th anniversary of friends. You're friends. See, as usual, you guys were right, and I'm wrong. That's why we have great producers. Teamwork.

Brittany, thank you very much. Can't wait to watch the full deal on Sunday today. Nagy Law, thank you, as always. And thank you for tuning in this week to the Sunday Sit Down podcast. You want to hear more of our full-length conversations with my guests every week. Be sure to click subscribe so you never miss an episode. And don't forget to tune in to Sunday today every weekend on NBC. I'm Willie Geist.

We'll see you right back here next week on the Sunday, Sit Down podcast.