Paul Rudd

Paul Stephen Rudd, born on April 6, 1969, in Passaic, New Jersey, is an American actor and comedian whose career spans film, television, and Broadway. His parents were both English-born and of Ashkenazi Jewish descent, with roots tracing back to Belarus, Poland, and Russia; his father, Michael Rudd, worked as a historical tour guide and for Trans World Airlines, while his mother, Gloria Irene Granville, served as a sales manager at the Kansas City television station KSMO-TV. The two were second cousins. When Rudd was ten, the family relocated to Lenexa, in Johnson County, Kansas, where he attended Broadmoor Junior High before graduating from Shawnee Mission West High School in 1987. That same year, he placed fifth in Humorous Interpretation at the National Forensics League National Tournament. He went on to study theater at the University of Kansas, where he was a member of the Sigma Nu fraternity's Nu chapter, and later trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts alongside actor Matthew Lillard. He also spent three months studying Jacobean drama at the British American Drama Academy in Oxford. During his time in acting school, he worked as a disc jockey at bar mitzvahs, and after graduating held various jobs, including glazing hams at the Holiday Ham Company in Overland Park, Kansas.

Rudd made his professional acting debut in 1991 in a commercial for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Beginning in 1992, he had a recurring role on the television drama Sisters as Kirby Quimby Philby, and in 1994 appeared in Wild Oats for six episodes. His film career gained momentum in 1995 with roles in Clueless and Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, in which he played Tommy Doyle. He followed those with supporting parts in William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet, The Locusts, Overnight Delivery, The Object of My Affection, and 200 Cigarettes. In 1999, he appeared in The Cider House Rules, whose cast received a Screen Actors Guild nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. He played FBI Agent Ian Curtis in the 2000 Hong Kong action film Gen-Y Cops.

A sustained creative partnership with director and producer Judd Apatow began in 2004 with Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy and continued with The 40-Year-Old Virgin in 2005, Knocked Up in 2007, and Wanderlust in 2012, which Rudd also co-produced. He reprised his Anchorman role of Brian Fantana in Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues in 2013. Additional film credits from this period include Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, in which he appeared as John Lennon, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, I Love You Man, Role Models, which he also co-wrote, Our Idiot Brother, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and Dinner for Schmucks. He narrated the 2007 edition of the sports documentary series Hard Knocks, which featured the Kansas City Chiefs, marking the only season not narrated by Liev Schreiber.

On television, Rudd joined the cast of the sitcom Friends in 2002, playing Mike Hannigan, the character who dates and ultimately marries Phoebe Buffay, a role he held through 2004. In 2009, he co-created the television series Party Down with John Embom, Rob Thomas, and Dan Etheridge. He appeared in four episodes of NBC's Parks and Recreation in 2012 and 2015 as a rival to Amy Poehler's character Leslie Knope, earning the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Guest Performer in a Comedy Series for that work. His dual role in the 2019 Netflix comedy series Living with Yourself brought him a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Television Series, Musical or Comedy. He starred in the 2021 miniseries The Shrink Next Door and appeared in the Hulu comedy series Only Murders in the Building from 2023 to 2025, a role that earned him a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series. He has also guest-hosted Saturday Night Live on multiple occasions.

Rudd's entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe was confirmed in December 2013, when he was cast as Scott Lang in Ant-Man, released in 2015. He subsequently reprised the role in Captain America: Civil War, Ant-Man and the Wasp, which he also co-wrote, Avengers: Endgame, and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania in 2023. He is set to appear in Avengers: Doomsday in 2026. He also played Gary Grooberson in Ghostbusters: Afterlife in 2021 and Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire in 2024. In 2019, he appeared on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list, and in 2021 People magazine named him its Sexiest Man Alive. His accolades include the Critics' Choice Television Award noted above, alongside nominations for a Golden Globe Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Rudd's Broadway career extended from 1997 to 2012. He starred in Grace and The Last Night of Ballyhoo, and also appeared in Three Days of Rain, the comedy Twelfth Night, and The Play What I Wrote.