It is almost two decades to the day since Paul Rudd first came to public attention and two things about him have remained unchanged since. The first， most obviously， is his face. 2）Save for some 3）faint lines on his forehead， Rudd looks 4）unnervingly similar to how he did in Clueless， which celebrates its 20th anniversary next week and in which he played the 5）love interest Josh.

The second is his personality： Paul Rudd is just so 6）darn nice. Every interview he has done mentions this and every one of his co-stars says this about him （Amy Poehler recently described him to me in an interview as “Mr. Perfect”）.

By the time I finally meet up with Rudd， he has been stuck inside an airless London hotel room doing interviews for his performance as the 7）eponymous Ant-Man， the latest superhero film in Marvel’s hugely 8）lucrative stable， for more than eight hours， starting at 7 a.m. Yet in his 9）trim suit and dark shirt he couldn’t look less 10）ruffled and more psyched to see me， urging me to partake in refreshments （“No tea？ You sure？ But you must be so hot！”） and 11）latching immediately on to my transatlantic accent. I’m not surprised that Rudd seizes on my accent—his parents were British Jews from Edgware and Surbiton， and while Rudd was born in New Jersey in 1969 and raised in the U.S.， he was often in Britain as a kid to visit relatives in London’s less glamorous suburbs and Basingstoke.

Part of Rudd’s reputation for niceness comes from his eagerness to self-12）deprecate—not a common trait among Hollywood celebrities—and I had lazily assumed this， too， was an inheritance from his English background. But Rudd puts his self-deprecation down to something more complicated than nationality. His father worked for the airline 13）TWA and the family moved a lot， before settling in Kansas when he was 10.

“I was always in new schools and had British parents， which was not the norm， and I think there was also…I’m not particularly religious， but I was born Jewish and I always felt like the outsider because I wasn’t Christian or Catholic，” he says. “So I learned early on that I could be accepted if I made people laugh when I turned the joke on myself and， particularly in Kansas， if I made a joke about being Jewish， my friends would laugh really hard， harder than they perhaps should have.”

Yet he talks about his childhood， Kansas and， in particular， his family with enormous fondness， especially his father， who died six years ago and whom he idolised and references often in our time together. One of the 14）defining memories of his younger years is watching his father 15）crack up on the sofa while watching 16）Monty Python， which planted the seed of him wanting to be a comedian and eventually an actor.

Is his friendliness part of that desire to please or does that come from growing up in the midwest？ “There is something about growing up in the midwest that gives a different kind of sensibility，” he agrees. “But if I’m feeling insecure， the smiles and politeness get upped a notch， and maybe that isn’t totally reflective of how I’m feeling on the inside. But， you know， better to be thought of as a nice person than a dickhead.”

While there might be some truth to that， the man

is too sweet for it to be just a twitch of insecurity. He doesn’t even 17）wince when he is asked—for what must be the 10 billionth time in his life—about Clueless.“Honestly， I’m just happy to be involved with something that struck a chord with as many people as it did.”

Rudd could easily have been another cute guy in a 90s film whose career faded out of view in the next decade—another Freddie Prinze Jr， say， or， at best， a Josh Charles—and gives much thanks to Judd Apatow for the opportunities he’s been given. “So as far as having an impact on my career， it was really with Anchorman and then The 40 Year Old Virgin where I took a left turn.”

These films certainly 18）rejuvenated Rudd’s career， but increasingly they started to look like they were trapping him. For every decent comedy in which he has appeared in the past decade， there have been plenty of 19）meh ones （This is Forty， Our Idiot Brother） and too many terrible ones， too（Admission， Dinner for Schmucks， How Do You Know）.

“Over the last 10 years， I never made a very concerted effort to 20）mix it up. I just wanted to work on things that I liked. But I think I was feeling some fatigue over that and wanted to try something different，” he says. And that brings us to Ant-Man.

While superhero movies are now part of Hollywood’s landscape， you would go through a lot of names before getting to Rudd’s when thinking of actors you would expect to add to the superhero 21）roster. As Rudd says himself：“I knew being in this would make people say： ‘What？ Really？’” But this is partly why he works in the film—after all， a movie about a man whose special power is that he becomes ant-sized is not calling for a classic 22）macho man. And Rudd will appear as Ant-Man in Captain America： Civil War and may well join the rest of the Avengers in future Marvel Universe adventures. After nailing teen romances in the 90s and fratty comedies in the earlier 2000s， the third and equally 23）zeitgeisty part to Rudd’s career may well be starting with superheroes.

如今，離保羅·路德首次進入觀眾的視野幾乎已有二十年，但他身上的兩樣?xùn)|西卻從未改變。第一樣，顯而易見，就是他的臉。除了前額多了一些細紋外，路德的樣子看起來簡直和在《獨領(lǐng)風騷》里的他一模一樣，他在里面扮演女主角的曖昧對象喬希。下周就是《獨領(lǐng)風騷》上映二十周年紀念日。

第二樣是他的個性：保羅·路德的為人好得過分。他接受的每一個采訪都提到過這一點，與他合作過的每一個明星也都這樣說（艾米·波勒最近在一個采訪中稱他為“完美先生”）。

當我終于見到路德時，他正在倫敦一間密不透風的酒店房間里就電影《蟻人》接受采訪，他飾演的正是“蟻人”這個角色?！断伻恕肥锹琴嵉门铦M缽滿的超級英雄系列電影中的最新一部。采訪從早上7點開始，已經(jīng)超過了8小時。然而，身穿整潔西裝和深色襯衫的路德在看到我時卻不見半分不耐煩的神色，反而充滿熱情，還勸我吃點東西（“不喝茶？你確定？但你肯定覺得很熱！”），他馬上就適應(yīng)了我的英國口音。我并不驚訝路德能適應(yīng)我的英國口音——他的父母是來自埃奇韋爾和瑟比頓的英國猶太人。雖然路德于1969年在新澤西出生并在美國長大，但他小時候經(jīng)常過來倫敦的偏遠郊區(qū)和貝辛斯科托探望他的親戚。

路德為人和善的名聲部分源自他的自貶——這個特點在好萊塢的名人中并不常見——我偷懶地把這歸因于他的英國背景。但路德認為他的自貶與國籍無關(guān)，其中的原因更為復(fù)雜。路德的父親以前在美國環(huán)球航空公司工作，他們一家經(jīng)常搬家，直到路德十歲時，他們才在堪薩斯州定居下來。

“我總是在轉(zhuǎn)學(xué)，父母都是英國人，這并不常見。我想這也是因為……我并不特別信奉宗教，但我是個猶太人，總有種自己是個局外人的感覺，因為我既不是基督教徒也不是天主教徒?！彼f道，“所以我從小就意識到，如果我開自己玩笑逗樂別人，別人就會接受我，特別是在堪薩斯州，如果我開個與自己是猶太人有關(guān)的玩笑，我的朋友會笑得特別起勁，按理說他們本不會笑得那么起勁的?！?/p>

他還談到了他的童年，除了在堪薩斯州的生活外，路德還熱切地談到了他的家庭，尤其是他的父親。他父親在六年前去世了，路德非常崇拜他，在我們的談話過程中多次提到他。路德有一個尤為重要的童年記憶片段，那就是看著父親在沙發(fā)上一邊觀看蒙提·派森的電影一邊狂笑，這讓他萌生了當一名喜劇演員的想法，并最終成為一名演員。

他的友善是否與他希望取悅別人的渴望或在中西部長大的經(jīng)歷有關(guān)？“在中西部長大讓我擁有一種與旁人不同的敏感?！彼?。“如果我感到不安，我就會露出微笑，表現(xiàn)得更有禮貌，但也許這并不是我內(nèi)心的真實感覺。但，你明白的，讓人覺得你是一個好人總比讓人覺得你是個笨蛋要好。

也許這是真的，這個男人只要感到一絲不安就會表現(xiàn)得非常友好。甚至當他被問到——這一定是他人生中第一百億次被問到這個問題——有關(guān)《獨領(lǐng)風騷》的問題時，他的臉上也沒有任何異色。“說實話，有幸參與到一部打動了這么多人的電影，我只感到高興?！?/p>

路德本可能成為90年代電影里又一個討觀眾喜歡的家伙，然后在接下來的十年里漸漸淡出觀眾的視野——比如說，另一個小弗雷迪·普林茲，或者頂多是另一個喬?！げ闋査?。多虧賈德·阿帕圖給了他很多的機會，他才沒有走上這樣的道路，他對此非常感激?！澳壳盀橹?，對我的事業(yè)影響最大的就是《王牌播音員》，然后便是《四十歲的老處男》，這兩部電影讓我的事業(yè)進入了一個新的方向?！?/p>

這些電影當然對路德的事業(yè)有所幫助，但漸漸地它們似乎也限制了他的發(fā)展。在過去十年他參與的所有喜劇中，有許多無聊片子（《四十而惑》《我們的傻老哥》），還有許多爛片（《愛在招生部》《笨人晚宴》《你怎知道》）。

“在過去十年里，我沒有很盡力讓事情有所改變。我只想做自己喜歡的工作。但我也感到了疲憊，想嘗試一些不同的東西?！彼f道。這就讓我們看到了《蟻人》。

超級英雄系列電影現(xiàn)在是好萊塢的一道風景線，當你回想扮演超級英雄的演員名單時，你腦海里會先閃過許多其他名字才會想到路德。正如路德自己所說：“我知道參演這部電影會讓人們說：‘什么？真的？’”但這也是他會參與其中的原因之一，畢竟，男主角的超能力是變成螞蟻大小，這樣一部電影并不需要擁有傳統(tǒng)猛男形象的男星。路德將會在《美國隊長3：內(nèi)戰(zhàn)》中作為“蟻人”出現(xiàn)，也許以后還會參演其他的《復(fù)仇者聯(lián)盟》系列電影。繼上世紀90年代演了許多優(yōu)秀的青春愛情片以及在本世紀初演了許多“爛仔幫”類型的喜劇片后，路德演藝生涯的第三個重要階段也許將從超級英雄開始。