Paul Rudd has made quite a name for himself starring in films like Clueless and This Is 40. Many consider the actor a superstar now, including Julia Roberts. But Roberts felt Rudd was different from other A-listers.
Paul Rudd didn’t expect to become a comedy actor
Rudd has featured in a wide variety of films and television shows in his long career. Initially, his claim to fame was mostly in comedies. He stood out it in comedy movies like Anchorman and The 40-Year-Old-Virgin. From there, he found a familiar niche in the comedy genre that served him well. But being a comic actor wasn’t exactly what Rudd originally had in mind.
“I’ve been a comedy fan since I was a kid, although I didn’t think that was the route I was going to go as an actor,” Rudd once said in an interview with NJ. “But when I started, I just remembered hearing at school, ‘If you act like it’s funny, it won’t be funny.’ So I always approached everything from the character, focusing on the reality of the situation.”
Since then, Rudd has become an even bigger star after being recruited by the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Ant-Man.
“Marvel is such a visible thing and it’s worldwide. My life changed and my visibility and fame really jumped,” he once said at a press conference according to the Economic Times.
Julia Roberts called Paul Rudd the most unexpected movie star
Rudd made a huge fan out of Oscar-winner Julia Roberts. The two haven’t starred in any films together. However, Roberts and Rudd once collaborated on the Broadway play Three Days of Rain. Roberts has been following Rudd’s career every now and then over the years, and found herself impressed with his performances.
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“Paul is the master of subtle comedy, and Knocked Up personifies that. The husband role is not the big, broad funny guy. But Paul gives these little looks; there are these little inflections in his voice. He can shift his eyes so that it’s funny,” Roberts once said on Variety’s Actors on Actors.
From studying the way he carries himself, Roberts also felt that Rudd was perhaps different than other A-listers she was familiar with.
“Paul is the most unexpected movie star. For his facial hair in Anchorman he probably walked around like that for months,” she said. “The people at the grocery store don’t know why he looks like that. They think he’s nuts. He’s not scared to do those things. For Esquire or GQ, some yummy guy magazine, he wore lederhosen. Comedy is hard work, he makes it look easy. At a dinner party, if you’re seated next to Paul, you’ll leave thinking, I’m so funny. I always want to be seated next to Paul.”
Paul Rudd finds it boring when other celebrities complain about superstardom
As overwhelming as his newfound fame can be sometimes, Rudd has shared that he’s pleased with the parks that come with celebrity. So much so that he doesn’t mind the attention he receives the way other A-listers might.
“It’s a very weird thing to be famous. I have been working as an actor for a long time now. So I’ve known different levels of it. I always think it’s boring when actors complain about how famous they are, because there are some things that are kind of nice about it. You get to see lots of different things and you’re awarded many opportunities, that’s for sure,” he said.
