Paul Rudd is one of those actors you can't help but like. We actually tried to find people who said they didn't like Rudd, and simply couldn't. The actor does comedy, drama, TV, movies, and pretty much everything in between - all in a way that makes him even more endearing.
Because he is so likable - and ageless - we were intrigued about how he comes across to his friends, colleagues, and fellow Hollywood heavyweights. What people say about Rudd is just as good as you might imagine (even Mac from Mac and Me would agree). Take a look and vote up the quotes that make you say, “Darn, he's nice!”
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- Ghostbusters: Afterlife
- Sony Pictures Releasing
Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, and Ernie Hudson appeared in Ghostbusters: Afterlife with Rudd, resuming their roles from the original two movies. When the threesome talked about the movie with Jimmy Fallon, Aykroyd called Rudd a “master comedian.”
He said Rudd was on the cusp of becoming “the leading comic, you know, leading man of his generation…. Paul is gonna be taking that torch up, I think.”
That torch would, in Aykroyd's words, be passed by none other than Bill Murray, whom Aykroyd called the leading man of his generation.
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In the Ant-Man movies, Michael Douglas plays Hank Pym, the designer of the suit that turns Rudd into the titular character. When Ant-Man and The Wasp came out in 2018, Douglas shared his thoughts on what it was like to work with Rudd:
Paul is just a sweetheart. He’s just a great, great guy so it sets the tone. Most of my career I’ve been number one on a call sheet, the lead, and so to be in a supporting role in a picture like this, you watch how he does it, you assume a lot of responsibility. If you’re smart, if you’re the first, you set the tone. You’re the first one on the set, you make everybody else comfortable to make their best performances possible.
Douglas went on to talk about how much fun it was being on set with Rudd and the other stars of the movie, even admitting:
I’m a little jealous of Paul because I’m kind of carrying the story line, and having to go home to research about what the hell I’m talking about. And Paul will just come in with some one-liner and steal the scene. He’s unpredictable, wonderfully so. And funny.
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- The Object of My Affection
- 20th Century Fox
In 2012, Jennifer Aniston said her friendship with Rudd made it easy to work with him:
We must have been husband and wife in a past life. Brother and sister in a past life. Something… Or in this life….
She was talking about their work together in Wanderlust, something she and Rudd also spoke about in GQ. When asked about whether it was “weird to kiss on-screen,” this exchange followed:
Jennifer Aniston: Nah. I’ve kissed him for years.
Paul Rudd: We’ve made out for decades.
Jennifer Aniston: It helps that it’s nice. What if you were like, "Well...it was really awkward for me, Jen..."
Paul Rudd: "If we’re putting our cards on the table..."
Jennifer Aniston: "...I asked for a body double."
The banter about kissing and the like may be in reference to their previous appearance together on the big screen, in 1998's Object of My Affection. It's also possible the co-stars were talking about their rumored romantic relationship at about the same time. Aniston reportedly once told a reporter that she and Rudd dated, joking they were “together when we were like 12.”
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- Friends
- NBC
Hank Azaria played David on Friends, an early love interest of Phoebe Buffay (Lisa Kudrow). David left on a science trip and, seasons later, Phoebe found love with a pianist named Mike, played by Rudd. According to Azaria, Mike wasn't necessarily supposed to get the girl in the end.
David reappeared in the last season of Friends, and Phoebe was forced to choose between him and Mike. David Crane, one of the creators of Friends, told Radio Times that even the writers weren't sure how it would end up. He called both Rudd and Azaria “amazing actors” and said, “it could have gone either way.”
Phoebe ultimately ended up with Mike, something that left Azaria disappointed:
I didn’t know that was the end of David. The plan always was kind of to bring him back…. I think, honestly, what happened was Paul Rudd is so awesome that they sort of found a groove with him and [my character] became more of just the grist for that mill.
Azaria had to admit Rudd-as-Mike proved “he was comedically deserving of Phoebe's love.” As for Azaria's overall impression of Rudd, he said:
He’s a handsome devil. He’s actually annoyingly handsome. He shouldn’t really be allowed to be that handsome. He’s like the Tom Brady of comedy.
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- Ant-Man and the Wasp
- Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Evangeline Lilly and Rudd have appeared opposite each other in two Ant-Man movies. When talking about making the first one, released in 2015, Lilly confirmed what her interviewer at Elite Daily suspected - that working with Rudd was challenging, but in a good way.
Lilly offered an “entertaining, but ever so slightly - well, extremely uncomfortable” example of how much Rudd made her laugh on set. In a scene when they were sparring, Rudd necessarily ended up with Lilly's legs around his head and his face in her crotch. During one take,
He looks up at me, and he asks me, “What was Sawyer [from Lost] like?”
For Lilly, that was “totally ridiculous and a classic moment of Paul Rudd timing.”
It was that ridiculousness that helped persuade Lilly to join the Ant-Man franchise to begin with. Initially, she wasn't interested in playing a superhero, but when she found out Rudd was the lead, she changed her mind:
I was like, “Hold the phone, wait, what? Paul Rudd’s gonna be a superhero? I’m in! Whatever they’re doing, it’s ridiculous, and I love it.”
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Rudd's role in the 1995 comedy Clueless propelled him to star status. As Josh, the half-brother to Alicia Silverstone's Cher, Rudd was the more grounded counterpart to her rich, social, and materialistic lifestyle.
Some 25 years after the movie's release, Silverstone was asked about her experience with it. She said she didn't remember a lot about making the movie, but was able to offer insight into which cast member was most like their on-screen character. Her choice was Rudd:
He’s just a good guy who’s smart and lovable and all those good things that make up Josh. Brittany Murphy was not like Tai. I don’t know Stacey Dash well enough to say for certain whether she’s like Dionne, but I’m guessing not much.
Silverstone also noted that she “found Cher on the page to be materialistic and unappealing. And really annoying, to be honest. Just everything I sort of loathed.”
Her favorite story about Rudd relates to Clueless, but comes from an event the cast attended in 2019. She told Looper:
Paul Rudd, Donald Faison, and Breckin Meyer and I were all in Chicago together… We were all doing an interview together on stage, and they were so funny, the three of them together, these boys, and Donald was telling us about how I had gone to this party with him for his birthday during that time [filming Clueless], and I said, “I never went to your birthday party. I have no idea what you're talking about.” He said, “You were there.”
Rudd chimed in, confirming Silverstone was at the party. But the story didn't stop there:
And then we started telling another story they were telling, and I said, "Paul, I don't remember that." And Paul goes, “Do you remember making Clueless?”
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- The Fundamentals of Caring
- Netflix
When Rob Burnett cast Rudd in The Fundamentals of Caring, he couldn't have imagined how many doors it would open for him. The 2016 movie features Rudd as a man who becomes a caregiver to a teenage boy with Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
For Burnett, the rewards of having Rudd in the movie were multifaceted. When he found himself on the side of the road facing a speeding ticket at 2 am, he name-dropped as much as he could:
I finally mention my current situation about scouting a movie and tell her that Paul Rudd is in it. The second I mention his name, the ticket pad goes away and I get a warning. Everything changes. This is how much people love Paul Rudd. God bless him!
Burnett also talked about everything Rudd brought to the project:
The thing is, he is a classically trained actor… It just so happens that he is also one of the funniest people on Earth... Not many [actors] can do both [drama and comedy]... I dreamt of having him for this as I wrote it. The other great thing about Paul is that he is likable in repose. It’s in his face. Whenever you say Paul Rudd people just say “oh, I love that guy!” It’s sickening.
It gives you a great advantage. A different actor making jokes about muscular dystrophy? You can push more jokes out because he is so likable and accessible. He was a dream to work with frankly.
For Burnett, working with Rudd made things easy because “once you have him you have everything.”
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- The 40-Year-Old Virgin
- Universal Pictures
The fact that Rudd doesn't seem to age is not lost on most of his former co-stars - or the rest of Hollywood. After he was voted People's “Sexiest Man Alive” in 2021, there were plenty of comments from the likes of Jennifer Aniston, Ryan Reynolds, and Kevin Hart.
Seth Rogen had no argument with the choice of Rudd, but offered a very personal perspective on his The 40-Year-Old Virgin co-star's agelessness. According to Rogen:
Yeah, it was a little alarming in some ways honestly because when I started working with Paul Rudd, he was older than I was. And now, I’ve somehow passed him….You would assume I was his uncle.
Judd Apatow, who cast Rudd in The 40-Year-Old- Virgin and This Is 40, put it this way:
The worst part about being friends with Paul Rudd, as the guy who doesn't age, is [that] I age. So every picture with him - like, I have pictures with him for the last like 20 years, and he just doesn't change and I'm slowly falling apart. He looks exactly the same right now, and I look like his dad.
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- Ant-Man and The Wasp
- Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Appearing as Kang the Conqueror in the third Ant-Man movie, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Jonathan Major described Rudd as “our leader…and he's awesome.”
He gave more thoughts on Rudd to Men's Health, again calling him a “leader":
He's also my nemesis. He's a hero on and off set and, really has been very much like Tom, Tom Hiddleston, Loki, really has been someone to go to, someone to chat with on set to really ground myself in the world that we're building.
And he's ageless, he actually doesn't age. So, that is true. I can say that… I don't know what the f*ck he does, man, but it works.
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- Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
- DreamWorks Pictures
Will Ferrell and Rudd appeared together in both Anchorman movies and reunited for the series The Shrink Next Door in 2021. The actors took a departure from their outwardly comedic personae in the dark comedy based on the podcast of the same name. Rudd played Dr. Isaac Herschkopf, while Ferrell appeared as Martin Markowitz, one of Herschkopf's patients.
When talking about the show to The Hollywood Reporter, both Ferrell and Rudd referenced the many, many times they laughed together on set. Ferrell joked, “I just remember I couldn’t stop staring at Paul because he’s just gorgeous. His acting? Well, look, it’s all a process….”
The enjoyment Ferrell found in reuniting with Rudd was, according to the former, “I think we have a shared sensibility. We love to make each other laugh.” Ferrell also offered what he thought was Rudd's best work: Wet Hot American Summer.
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- Ghostbusters: Afterlife
- Sony Pictures Releasing
Mckenna Grace was only 15 when she appeared in the 2021 film Ghostbusters: Afterlife as Phoebe Spengler, with Rudd portraying her teacher, Gary Grooberson.
In interviews for the movie, Grace referred to some of her co-stars as “Mr.” - an endearing and respectful title. Dan Aykroyd was “Mr. Dan” and Rudd was “Mr. Paul.” (In contrast, Bill Murray was just “Bill,” and Ernie Hudson was simply “Ernie.”)
When talking about Rudd, Grace had this to say:
Mr. Paul was really funny. Mr. Paul ... he's great. I wish that there was a gag reel. I feel like there was so much funny stuff that we did that didn't make it in. There's always going to be gag reel stuff for Paul. It's Paul Rudd. Sexiest man alive. Hilarious. He's great. I'm sure if there was a gag reel, it would be filled with Mr. Paul. There's nothing very specific that I can remember, but he's very nice and very funny.
When asked if Rudd gave her any career advice, Grace admitted:
I feel whenever I'm on set or whenever I'm talking with other actors, it's fun to ask them more questions that are less about the business. I feel like I'd want to know what his favorite color is or something more than his advice… Though I was chatting with him at the afterparty last night, and he's just very kind. He does give me advice and talks to me about the film, and it's really kind.
When speaking to iHeartRadio, she said it was an “honor” to work with the “lovely” Rudd.
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