The movie Paul Rudd called “unlike anything else”
Most people would have to search hard to find something to dislike about Paul Rudd. Outside of his range in comedic and dramatic roles, there’s always been a certain charisma behind Rudd’s characters that always seems to resonate with people, even if they aren’t in love with the movie behind him. Although Rudd can always find a way to bring a smile to the audience’s face, there’s still one film that stands alone for him in terms of comedy.
Then again, Rudd has always believed that good comedy comes out of great sadness. In his appearance on Hot Ones, he had always been drawn to comedies that had somewhat of a bittersweet tone, recalling, “Whenever I see someone experiencing something heartbreaking, and they deal with that through humour, I find that very funny and relatable. I think that something can be very funny and heartbreaking at the same time”.
Having been through his fair share of humorous movies like Clueless and Wet Hot American Summer, Rudd was thrown for a loop when given the script to Anchorman for the first time. When talking with GQ about his work on the Will Ferrell comedy, Rudd was sold before he had even worked with any of his castmates, recalling, “It’s rare that you find a script that you want to re-read for pleasure, certainly in comedies. I thought that was one of the funniest scripts. It was unlike anything else”.
Even with the great back and forth between Ferrell’s Ron Burgundy and the rest of the news crew, Rudd found himself seeing some spark in Brian Fantana, going on to say, “He’s pretty impressed with himself or likes to present himself that way, but is staggeringly insecure and trying his hardest to act like the smoothest dude out there”.
When Rudd arrived on set, any idea of sticking to the script quickly disappeared. Since Ferrell had worked with screenwriter Adam McKay during his time on Saturday Night Live, Rudd would find himself improvising lines on set while still keeping the general idea of what was written on the page.
Some of the most memorable scenes from the movie ended up coming from these experiments, including when Ferrell compliments his fellow newsmen after going through a “vicious cockfight” in the middle of downtown San Diego. Rudd would look back on the film as something that changed his usual approach to comedic acting, saying, “We would do what was in the script, and then we would start messing around. It was a whole new way of working on a big budget movie, and it was thrilling”.
Although the movie would go on to become a comedic classic of the ‘00s, the referential humour behind some of the jokes led to some audiences not picking up on them until years later when they saw it again on DVD or streaming. Anchorman is not going to be called a smart movie by anyone these days, but given how prevalent this brand of humour is in modern comedy, maybe Hollywood needed a few more years to catch up to Will Ferrell and co.
