Paul Rudd is one of those ageless beauties in the same vein as Rob Lowe or Dolly Parton. It doesn’t matter how much time has passed; they age so flawlessly that they appear to be practically ageless. Le sigh. Rudd joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) back in 2015, playing Scott Lang aka Ant-Man. Even if you don’t know anything about the movies or the comics, you could probably deduct that they are (generally) about attractive, regular people going through something that turns them into hot, buff people with superpowers.

Throughout the years, there have been actors and actresses that have spoken out about the crazy training and diets they had to do in order to get and stay in shape for their action-hero roles. Hugh Jackman famously consumes 8,000 calories a day while working out nonstop in order to get into shape to play Wolverine. It never occurred to me that Rudd, the beautiful, beautiful man that he is, was also working really hard at getting buff in order to play Ant-Man. But, he was, and for him, it was not quite the rewarding experience he thought it would be. Before we go on, I want to give a gentle TW that Rudd discusses body image issues in the podcast interview that’s quoted.

During a recent appearance on the Off Menu podcast, Paul detailed what he had to go through diet-wise to portray Ant-Man in the MCU films — and, surprise surprise, it does not sound even remotely worth it.

“When I was having to train for the Ant-Man movie, and I was on a very restrictive diet, my reward was sparkling water,” he revealed. “That’s how horrible that diet was.”

“I was like, ‘Alright, I’m gonna have some sparkling water now, I’ve earned it.’ Yeah, it was great. It wasn’t flavored, I wasn’t gonna go crazy.”

Paul also explained that he adhered to the diet for all of his work in the MCU films, which comprised of eating “really boring food, every time, over and over again” — and that adhering to it was “actually not too hard” once he was in it. But Paul also said that, even though he engaged in workout regimens in a similar manner as his MCU costars, he could never quite achieve the same results as his colleagues.

“I worked out harder than anyone, I would eat better than everyone, and I looked worse than all of them,” he admitted. “I had to work out all the time, eat perfectly, just to look kind of bad. Not even like great.”

“I remember on Endgame, Chris Hemsworth would always have these Tupperware containers and he’s eating this gruel of just a mash of stuff,” he further recalled. “He’s working out, and then you stand next to a guy like that, and I just think, ‘Well, what’s the point of any of this?’”

“Why am I killing myself when that can exist, and then I look at myself and this exists. I can never achieve that…That was the good thing that it was Ant-Man, it isn’t Thor.”

“But I tried to work out, and it didn’t work.”

[From Buzzfeed]

I really feel for what Rudd went through, especially because he was comparing himself to colleagues much younger than he is (for example, there is a 13 year age gap between Rudd and Hemsworth). There’s also the fact that everyone’s body is different and what works for some does not work for all. Even if our bodies need the same types of healthy fuel, we’re still all built differently. I’ve also learned that the older I get, the more I need to make sure I eat enough because weight loss is no longer the catch-all “eat less, exercise more.” Sometimes, the more you exercise, the more your body needs you to eat for fuel or else it will go into starvation mode and stubbornly hold onto weight. But anyway, Paul Rudd seems to be an all-around genuinely decent person and I enjoy him as Ant-Man and, most recently, in Only Murders in the Building. FWIW, I recently rewatched Clueless and he truly looks just about the exact same as he does now, so he must be doing something right.

photos credit: Avalon.red, Cover Images and via Instagram