Paul Rudd was ready to leave the comedy roles behind him for a part in Broadway’s Grace, alongside Michael Shannon and Ed Asner.
“I loved the idea of working with Michael,” Rudd said in an interview with USA Today. “I hadn’t felt a burning desire to do another play, just for the sake of doing one. But I thought this was really interesting. And the character is different from the kind I’ve usually played.”
However, the theater world offers different challenges from working in Hollywood. The play itself presented some obstacles. “There are sections where things move backwards in time,” he said. “And the language is different—very specific and contemporary, with speeches that are like giant run-on sentences. I usually memorize lines pretty quickly, but these were hard to learn.”
Theater work also comes with a different working schedule. Rudd noted he “hates working six days a week. I would love two days off, you know? The last time I did a play, my son was about one-and-a-half. Now he’s seven, and I have a two-year-old daughter. I’ve felt a little absentee during the rush of the last few weeks, so it’ll be nice when rehearsals are over and I can be with them more.”
