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movie news
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Fri. 07 27. 2007 10:15 AM EDT
5 Questions: Paul Rudd
The Ten star never intended to be a comedian. Just his luck, then, that comedy attacked him.
by
Jeff Wilser
(
)
Well, that was fast. Overnight, Paul Rudd went from "Who's that guy again, what's he in?" to the most in-demand comedian of 2007. Just months after stealing scenes in
Knocked Up, he leads the ensemble cast of The Ten, which reinterprets the Ten Commandments through sketch comedy that's just plain wrong. (How wrong? "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife," for example, is a screwball sketch about male prison rape.) After getting his start in Clueless, Wet Hot American Summer, and as Brian Fantana in Anchorman, Rudd looks poised to be the next Steve Carell.
VH1: So you're in 87 movies this summer. Are you scared we'll get sick of you?
Paul Rudd: [Laughs.] It seems that last year, I'd work on something for a day or two with some friends, and now everything is coming out this year. And it's annoying. I know that if I wasn't me, I'd be so sick of me. And I'm me, and I'm sick of me!
VH1: How'd you get started as a funnyman?
PR: This has been a strange trajectory. I never did sketch comedy, never studied improvisation, never did stand-up. I went to college and studied theater, and I live in New York because I wanted to do plays. As far as starting in comedy, a turning point was probably Wet Hot American Summer. That helped me get cast in Anchorman, because [writer/director] Adam McKay loved it.
VH1: Let's pretend you're cast in a Superhero movie. What's your power?
PR: I don't think I'd be a very good superhero. Maybe if they had a "Puzzle Man": I could do crossword puzzles in under seven minutes, and that's the extent of my super power. Maybe "Scrabble Man." Maybe "Jew Man" -- able to light Shabbat Candles on a single Friday.
VH1: Your biggest comedic influence?
PR: A major one is Steve Martin. We were all very much impacted by those comedy records that he put out in the '70s. And another comic voice that doesn't get the props in a way that he deserves is David Letterman. He's shaped a certain sense of irony and randomness in comedy. There was an irreverence to his show; it just seemed so fresh. When he first did Top-10 lists, it was so weird and funny and abstract, and now you see them in car commercials. Letterman's an important figure, actually.
VH1: So what, exactly, were you guys trying to say about the 10 Commandments?
PR: I don't even think we wanted to have any comment on the 10 Commandments. It was originally just a way to make every member of The State [comedy troupe] do the movie. I honestly think was this the "genesis," pardon the pun. And the 10 Commandments was a good template. It seemed funnier than the Bill of Rights. Maybe that's the sequel.
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