Paul Rudd enters the Marvel Cinematic Universe as its latest hero in Marvel’s “Ant-Man” come July 17!
As Scott Lang, Rudd dons the Ant-Man helmet to help Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) pull off a daring heist with the world at stake. While the star was filming his debut Marvel adventure last year, we visited the set to chat with him about his role, both on and off screen.
Rudd doesn’t just star in the film—he also served as one of its writers, working closely with his longtime collaborator Adam McKay off a story by Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish. But while Rudd and McKay are typically known for their comedic work together, they didn’t want “Ant-Man” to play as strictly a comedy.
Taking on the character of Ant-Man allowed Rudd to explore a different role and type of film than he’d ever done before.
“You wouldn't [necessarily] think of me first for this kind of thing,” the actor admits. “My career took a left turn after ‘Anchorman.’ I had done some comedies before, but I'm not a comedian. I didn't study sketch comedy, my background isn't that. It just happened that I worked with those guys and loved it and continued to work with a lot of comics after the fact. But I like to do lots of different things, so [this] didn't seem so crazy to me. It did feel different. It certainly felt like, wow, this is the big leagues. I've never done a movie with this big of a budget.”
Working on a film as big as “Ant-Man” also involves a good deal of work with green screens, but though Rudd hadn’t done much in that area before, he quickly learned the secret to making it work. “You just imagine what it would be like and then you just pretend,” explains Rudd. “It's that kind of thing that you hear other actors talk about in interviews, where I had to wear a suit with ping-pong balls on it and talk to a big tape mark and imagine that there's something there.
“It's a very specific kind of feeling stupid,” laughs Rudd. “Acting in general, you just feel kind of stupid doing it anyway. But when you're pretending to be rolling around and dodging a foot or riding an ant, you're having to really do it seriously and there's nothing there. [You’ve] got to put faith in the process, [with] the greatest, the best most talented people are working on this thing.
“At its core it's just believing the situation and throwing yourself into it wholeheartedly, trying not to be self conscious or judge what it is that you're doing. That's always a challenge. But it's also fun, this is really fun stuff. Later on today I'm going to be hanging out of a helicopter and pretend like I'm flapping around, then ants are holding onto a seatbelt, and taken out of context, that's just ridiculous. But it's also the kind of thing that we all did when we were five years old and were playing in our living room. I used to play Starsky and Hutch with my sister, and I’d be hanging on the back of a van. We all believe it when we're kids, it's just holding onto that, I guess.”
The film opens with Scott getting out of jail after several years, and though he’s made some bad decisions in the past he’s now looking to get his life back on track.
“Maybe some of his choices that he makes with his life are questionable,” suggests Rudd. “Maybe the motives are honorable, um, or maybe they're not. Some people don't think they are. But I think that he's somebody that cares about his daughter. That's the motivating factor for some of the choices that he makes. Certainly in the comics, that's his story. I think he's a smart guy who maybe has to reevaluate what's really important in his life and what kind of person he wants to be.”
“Ant-Man” pairs Rudd with Michael Douglas, who plays the suit’s inventor, Hank Pym. Rudd relished working with such a legendary actor for the first time. “It’s just been amazing,” the actor proclaims. “The last time I saw him a few days ago, all he did was tell me stories about ‘Streets of San Francisco.’ I mean, what a great way to spend your day at work. I have worked with some incredible actors, legends, I feel like the best that there are, I don't know how it happened. Paul Newman played my grandfather in a play that I did, and it was a similar kind of thing, where it takes me a little bit of time to just calm down. Hopefully it's just a few days where I can get to the point where I just feel like, all right, it's cool, we're hanging out, and that I can then ask them some stories. Or tips, things like, things like that.
“It's been great working with him. He's such a good actor. He's a producer [as well, so] he approaches story and character and the making of a movie from all kinds of angles. The gravitas that he brings to everything, it just feels like ohm this is the big leagues. I'm playing in the big leagues now. That's what it can be like.”
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