The “awful” scene Paul Rudd called “the weirdest thing” he’s ever had to film
Is it possible to write an article about Paul Rudd without mentioning how young he looks at 56? Tough to say.
Does that first sentence count if we’re trying not to? Again, tough to say, but either way we shall instead attempt to concentrate on more interesting facts about the Rudd-man, such as the fact he’s going to be in the new Avengers movie, and has also been in a Christmas effort that has not one, but two names.
Yes, Rudd has the standard festive film on his CV, and it’s called All is Bright, although if you’re watching it in the UK, it’s Almost Christmas, as though British people couldn’t work out that the American title is a reference to Silent Night. It’s the story of a pair of down-on-their-luck gents who decide to turn to Christmas tree selling in New York in order to raise cash after one is released from prison and the other tries to shack up with his wife.
Released in 2013, the movie didn’t really pull up any trees (get it!) but has slowly built up a bit of a following by virtue of the fact that there aren’t actually that many Christmas films that are watchable, which is why we watch Home Alone and Arthur Christmas on rotation every single year. Rudd and Paul Giamatti put in decent performances as the troubled pair, and it’s probably worth 90-odd minutes of your time before you fall asleep in a turkey-induced coma.
It isn’t the first time Rudd has been involved in filming something that has two versions of the same thing however, back in 2019 he did a show for Netflix called Living With Yourself, a darkly comic sci-fi tale co-starring Irish comic Aisling Bea that told the story of a man attempting to co-exist with a cloned version of himself, with Rudd playing both roles.
Rudd was Golden Globe-nominated for his performance in the show, which received decent ratings and was a moderate hit, although it didn’t make it to a second season. Filming it proved tough on occasion for the actor, though, featuring scenes like the opener when he had to burst out of a grave practically naked.
Rudd told The Independent: “Filming that was awful. It was the weirdest thing I’ve ever had to film. I’m not so claustrophobic, really, but something within us knows that it’s not the right thing to be buried alive. There was a tube that went underground so I could breathe.”
Luckily, the scene was filmed in Brooklyn in a public park, which meant that any onlookers weren’t too fussed, given the amount of mental stuff that happens in the Big Apple on a daily basis.
Rudd added, “That’s the great thing about New York. Somebody getting out of the ground in a diaper is the third weirdest thing they’ve seen that day.”
As mentioned, Rudd is working on Avengers: Doomsday, due out late next year, where he’ll reprise his Ant-Man character, and he’s also about to be seen in Anaconda, a kind of reboot of the 1997 J-Lo horror that pairs him with Jack Black and Thandie Newton, which releases on Boxing Day in the UK.
He’ll also appear in the latest musical movie from Begin Again director John Carney called Power Ballad, and he’ll be one of the leads in Rain Reign, about a teenage girl who loses her dog in a storm and sets off to track it down.
