Marvel's ANT-MAN Family Series, Part 1: Chatting With Paul Rudd - He's ANT-MAN!

We’re talking all things Marvel this week about the latest release from the franchise: ANT-MAN! During the ANT-MAN family series, we’ll be sharing some awesome interviews, set visits, behind the scenes, and information about the movie each day. Find out if you should take your family to go see it, in theaters July 17th!

ANT-MAN Family Series, Part 1: Chatting With Paul Rudd

When I was in Atlanta last year, I got the chance to stop by Marvel’s ANT-MAN movie set with an awesome group. It was all the way in the outskirts of town, there were a couple of scenes being shot in 40 degree weather, so we bundled up and got down there to watch it all happen. The experience was surreal!

We talked to Paul Rudd, mega star actor who plays Scott Lang, or ANT-MAN in the movie. In the movie, Lang is trying to remove himself from his criminal past. He is a good man with the goal to be a great father to his daughter, Cassie, and becomes tasked with a mission that could save the world! I love the family element that Marvel wrote into the script, it is such an important part of our lives,

Marvel’s Ant-Man
L to R: Ant-Man/Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) and Cassie (Abby Ryder Fortson)
Photo Credit: Zade Rosenthal
© Marvel 2014

We were watching him in live action from a tent outside of the house they were filming in. The set was originally supposed to be outdoors, but everyone was literally freezing so they moved everything inside. Rudd stepped out of filming and sat with us for a few minutes to candidly chat, we asked him all about the movie and had a great time! Here’s what we learned…

Chatting with Paul Rudd, Marvel’s ANT-MAN

How Rudd feels about playing a super hero – “It’s fun! Yeah. It’s a totally different kind of experience for me.” He says that Director Edgar Wright is a friend of his, so when he signed on to play ANT-MAN, he was excited to work with Wright and thought it would be fun to do something different. Most people don’t think of Rudd as the ‘action and drama’ type, a new experience for him and his fans!

How it feels to wear the ANT-MAN superhero suit and helmet – Rudd says that the suit is a bit hard to move around in, it’s a little heavier than the clothes we’re used to wearing, so he says that he has to make due. “It feels really cool, ‘cause it looks bad ass.” I’ll take it! The only thing is that he has to have someone else put it on, and take it off of him, and if he ever has an itch, he can forget about scratching it under all of that heavy armor! “There were certain days I was in [the costume] for a long time. It felt great to take it off at the end of the day.”

How he prepared for his role – There are a bunch of things that Rudd has had to adapt to throughout the filming of ANT-MAN. Lots of ant, comic and Marvel related research had to happen, plus Rudd had to endure physical training in gymnastics, weight lifting and mild cardio for the past year (2014). He says one of the toughest parts was actually having to cut out carbs for the entire duration, and how nice it would be to just have an ice cold beer!

When asked why his lines were different every time they reenacted a scene, Rudd said that the “Marvel approach” to shooting movies means that “they’ll often try lots of different versions of things. They want to kind of explore every avenue.” This leaves a little room to “do the scenes as written, but then we’ll play around with it as well.”

From Marvel.com:

The next evolution of the Marvel Cinematic Universe brings a founding member of The Avengers to the big screen for the first time with Marvel Studios’ “Ant-Man.” Armed with the astonishing ability to shrink in scale but increase in strength, master thief Scott Lang must embrace his inner-hero and help his mentor, Doctor Hank Pym, protect the secret behind his spectacular Ant-Man suit from a new generation of towering threats. Against seemingly insurmountable obstacles, Pym and Lang must plan and pull off a heist that will save the world.