“I Love You, Man” (2009)
Though Rudd has always had the full actor’s toolkit (looks, charm, charisma, comedy timing), it took more than a decade for him to snag a lead role. The first true example is “Role Models,” with Sean William Scott, a buddy comedy with a hilariously foulmouthed turn from Bobb’e J. Thompson, but better was to come the following year with this subsequently underrated examination of male friendships, which also stars Jason Segel. Proving sleeper hits at a time when the Apatow brand (neither film actually had the comedy titan involved, but you wouldn’t know from the marketing) was at its biggest, the success of both helped to put Rudd on the path to superhero-dom. The premise of John Hamburg‘s film, about a guy who’s great with women but has no actual guy friends, does strain credulity, but Rudd’s crucial to making it stick with an audience: he’s charming enough that you buy that he’d be marrying Rashida Jones, but with an intrinsic awkwardness that makes it completely understandable that he’d have difficulty getting on with other guys. Frankly, it’s difficult to imagine anyone being a better counterpoint to Segel’s unrestrained laddishness, or the film working at all without the funny and oddly moving look on Rudd’s face as, bonding over a mutual love of Rush, he totes magotes finds a bro-soulmate.
READ MORE: Watch: Size Matters In The Trailer For Marvel’s ‘Ant-Man’ Starring Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas & Evangeline Lilly
“Prince Avalanche” (2013)
A lot of the chatter around this film when it premiered at Sundance focused on how this little two-hander comedy (a remake of Icelandic film “Either Way”) was a return to form for director David Gordon Green. It actually turned out to be a new evolution entirely, more of a hybrid of his earlier, more lyrical and artful work like “George Washington” and “All the Real Girls” with the string of comedies he’d made (starting with the pretty damn good “Pineapple Express” and on to the sad, diminishing returns of “Your Highness” and “The Sitter”). The mix worked, not least because of Rudd’s uptight lead character, Alvin, and his dynamic with Emile Hirsch. The two have boundless chemistry, in that they convincingly play in-laws who don’t really like each other but are required to spend most their time together. Green’s picture breezes by pleasantly, but still somehow feels like a complete and satisfying meal, and though it’s a simple story of two guys working in the Texas woods for a summer in 1988, there’s still some interesting things to chew on, like the (possibly ghostly?) characters they encounter. If you gave up on Green because you didn’t like his comedies, you owe it to yourself to see this. We think it’ll renew your faith in him as a vital filmmaker, and it certainly showcases Rudd at his low-key, generous best.
Honorable Mentions:
Though we didn’t include David Wain’s “Wanderlust” in our final mix, we’d be remiss if we didn’t celebrate quite possibly Rudd’s finest ever moment on screen:
Also worth mentioning again is “The 40 Year-Old Virgin,” the other very good Apatow directorial effort (though I haven’t seen “Trainwreck” yet) that uses Rudd’s innate ability to play the lovable loser, as well as his talent for making comedy out of sadness. There’s his uncredited cameo in “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story,” in which he played John Lennon. Our Editor-In-Chief Rodrigo Perez is a big fan of the tiny indie “Diggers,” so now we have to check that one out, and don’t forget his other memorably dopey cameo in “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.”
His aforementioned first true leading role came in “Role Models,” a surprisingly touching comedy that’s way better than it needs to be. On the more dramatic side, he was also in the 1999 Oscar-winning John Irving adaptation “Cider House Rules” as Lt. Wally Worthington, while it’s worth mentioning he’s briefly in the awesome “This is the End” and has more substantial parts in less successful fare like “Admission” and “Our Idiot Brother.”
