Paul Rudd: a funny thing happened to Paul Rudd on his way to becoming the movies' next all-American leading man: he discovered his inner weirdo

JUDD APATOW: We've never really had a great conversation, so this will probably be pretty average.

PAUL RUDD: You know, if we could just beat out Paulina Petrzocova interviewing Gisele Bundrick, then we'll be fine. [both laugh]

JA: Paul, let me ask you this to begin with: What are we promoting with this interview?

PR: Well, there is this Michelle Pfeiffer movie I did, called I Could Never Be Your Woman.

JA: I Could Never Be Your Woman--is that an old Chaka Khan song?

PR: It's from an old White Town song.

JA: It's a long title.

PR: So if you had to rename the movie, what would you call it?

JA: This Guy?--with a question mark. Something like that. I'm all for concise--Knocked Up. Anchorman [2004]. Keep it tight.

PR: You like one- or two-word titles.

JA: Tell me about this movie.

PR: It's about me meeting Michelle Pfeiffer, and she actually thinks that she could never really be my woman, but I think that if she just lets go a little bit, she could be.

JA: Why in this film does Michelle Pfeiffer think she can't be your woman?

PR: Well, you know, because I'm young. I'm not really young, but in the movie I'm young.

JA: But she's hot.

PR: She's totally hot. Her character is just a busy career woman. She has a daughter. She's divorced. Judd, who has time anymore?

JA: Who has time to screw around with Paul Rudd with so much to do?

PR: Yes.

JA: So how was that experience, working with Amy Heckerling and Michelle Pfeiffer?

PR: Judd, can I tell you something? It was great. I love Amy. I've worked with her before, as you know, on Clueless [1995]. It was very cool to work with her again 11 years later. When we shot Clueless I had no idea what made a good director or a bad director. I didn't have much of a barometer.

JA: Did having Michelle Pfeiffer as your leading lady create any problems with your wife?

PR: It didn't at all. In fact, the very first day, I had this scene where I was supposed to be making out with Michelle Pfeiffer. I told my wife, "Look. I want you to know that I'm going to be making out with Michelle Pfeiffer today, and I will be thinking about ... Michelle Pfeiffer." My wife's response was that when she makes out with me she also thinks of Michelle Pfeiffer.

JA: We all think of Michelle Pfeiffer when we're making out.

PR: What's really embarrassing is that I worked with Jon Lovitz on this movie, and I told him that story, and he told Michelle Pfeiffer.

JA: And she told David E. Kelley [Pfeiffer's husband], who then put it in an episode of Boston Legal?

PR: And who now wants my ass on a hot plate.

JA: Now, we did a movie together, Knocked Up, and your character in the film is married to Leslie Mann, who is my wife in real life. You had to kiss my wife--Although briefly--in the movie.

PR: Right.

JA: No real kisses--just pecks, really. I could handle that. But then, right after Knocked Up, my wife shot a movie called Drillbit Taylor with Owen Wilson. I was on the set when she had to really make out with him, and I found it horrifying--I mean, it haunts my dreams.

PR: It's going to haunt mine now, and I had nothing to do with it.

JA: My wife had to kiss Matthew Broderick in The Cable Guy [1996], and I remember that when they parted there was a long spit tightrope from each of their lips to the other's. That also haunts my dreams.

PR: So it wasn't awkward for you to watch me kiss your wife. But it must have been incredibly awkward to see me play with your children.

JA: I didn't mind that at all. In fact, in Knocked Up the people who play your children are my children. I thought that, because my kids know you, I could get them to behave like normal children if Leslie played their mom and you played their dad. And that turned out to be true. I was not jealous at all, just because you're naturally awkward around children, and they didn't like you that much. [Rudd laughs] I remember we shot this scene, which got cut from The 40-Year-Old Virgin [2005], where I played a customer in the electronics store, and I'm holding my daughter Iris. The joke's supposed to be that you're trying to sell us this robot, and my kid starts bawling, and I start screaming, "Just turn off the fucking robot!" And you say, "I can't turn off the robot!" To this day my daughter Iris, on some level, doesn't like you. She calls you Fontana, the man who scared her with the robot. I actually enjoyed watching my wife curse you out, though.

PR: What was that like? Never mind as a director--just as a spectator. There I am, essentially in your world with your children and your wife, getting yelled at. How did that feel?

JA: It felt so good.

PR: I really liked that scene because, in a weird way, it was a form of masochism. It was like creating myself at my worst and having my wife screaming at me about it, the way I deserve to be yelled at. There's something really demented about it, because when you get into fights with your wife you usually think you're right--or think you're right just because you handled it better than she did, even if your position is wrong.