During his entire career, Paul Rudd has played the leading man in romantic comedies ("Clueless") and appeared in guy-centric comedies ("I Love You, Man" and "The 40-Year-Old Virgin"), so taking on the role of a superhero in Marvel's latest flick "Ant-Man" was quite the surprising move from the actor.
While speaking to Screen Rant, Rudd revealed that he liked the element of surprise and wanted to treat fans to something completely unexpected.
"The idea of doing something so different from anything I'd ever done before, and that people might hear that I was cast in this movie and their reaction might be, 'Huh?' Because it didn't jive with the rest of the stuff, so that was a huge appeal," he said.
"Ant-Man" is not just an action movie, the actor added, since it is quite funny and riveting at the same time as well. "The fact that the movie kind of fired on all the cylinders that I'm interested in and that I like, that it's funny but it has heart. There's an emotional story that you can kind of get invested in. And then then the visuals and the actions and the affects are - I mean, they're crazy good," he said.
The movie was supposed to be directed by Rudd's good friend Edgar Wright, so when the director dropped the film, the actor became concerned that he would be replaced as the leading man, since it was Wright who chose him for the role of the petty thief Scott Lang.
However, Marvel gave him the assurance that he's still on for the role, and Rudd was surprised to find himself feeling impressed by Peyton's vision for the movie.
"All the changes happened pretty quickly and the ship righted itself pretty quickly, and all of a sudden, different things started to expand and present themselves as opportunities, and I was really excited and happy," he shared. "And the experience of shooting the film was phenomenal, and I look at it now and it's like, 'Oh, Peyton really stepped up.'"
Rudd feels sad that he was not able to work with Wright, and he hopes they would have the opportunity to work on another movie in the future, but he also feels thrilled that Peyton directed "Ant-Man." He said that he's a huge fan of Peyton even before working with him in "Ant-Man," and after the movie, Rudd feels like there's no limits to Peyton's filmmaking genius.
