Paul Rudd Talks Playing Opposite Himself in 'Living With Yourself' & That Tom Brady Cameo | In Studio - video Dailymotion

Hollywood Journal

Rudd, alongside writer and creator Timothy Greenburg, join The Hollywood Reporter In Studio to discuss their new Netflix series and break down how they got the New England Patriots quarterback to make an appearance.

Transcript

00:00Hi, I'm Paul Rudd, and I'm Tim Greenberg, and you are in studio with The Hollywood Reporter.

00:09But we're not in sync.

00:14All right, well, thank you guys for being here.

00:17Now, your new show, Living With Yourself, is about a man that sets out to be a better version of himself,

00:23but he accidentally clones himself in the process.

00:27Now, first of all, this is such a well-written show, and it's also a really witty concept.

00:33So if you guys can talk a little bit about where the idea or inspiration for this show stemmed from.

00:39I mean, you know, I've had the idea in different versions over the years.

00:44I think it started to gel, though, once I got married and had a family

00:49and realized that I was often the least good version of myself with the ones that I love the most.

00:59You know, and why is that?

01:00Why is it that we should be the best versions of ourselves with the ones we love the most,

01:04but we often are not, and why is that?

01:06And that was sort of a daily challenge for me.

01:08And then, you know, that sort of lent itself to this idea that I'd had in a different format of,

01:13what if there was another you?

01:14And so I think it was a way to talk about, like, the kinds of things that I dealt with on a daily basis

01:18and the way that we live our lives with our friends and our family and our coworkers,

01:22but do it in a really fun and interesting way.

01:24Yeah, I love that.

01:26Now, oh, do you want to add to that?

01:27Yeah, no, as did I.

01:28I mean, when I read them, they were all written.

01:31It's a rare thing that you get to read eight episodes of a show.

01:35Normally there's one or two, and then with a page, it's talking about where this is going to go.

01:40And I was taken with it right away, and one of the things that I could tell besides the fact that it was so well written

01:48was that it was a singular voice, and one person wrote every episode, which is rare,

01:56but that the writer had spent a lot of time with it

02:02because there is such complexity to the story, and it is a jigsaw puzzle,

02:10and you could read something in episode two, and then all of a sudden I'd get to episode five

02:14and say, oh, my God, whoa, I've just seen this, but, well, now I'm looking at it

02:18through a completely different perspective.

02:20And that kind of structure, that kind of care takes work, and so I was immediately impressed

02:29by just how much thought went into it, let alone skill.

02:33Yeah, and that is what I loved about this show.

02:35It is that it took you on a journey, too.

02:39And it was so hard for me to place what I would call this.

02:42Is it a comedy?

02:43Is it a thriller?

02:44Is it a drama?

02:45Because it really did take you through the journey of these characters,

02:48and even putting the pieces together by watching each episode together,

02:52it was really well written.

02:54Thanks.

02:55I mean, that was important.

02:56I think the tone was something that we agreed on right from the get-go,

03:01and I think some of that is in the scripts,

03:03but I think some of it is just in terms of our shared sensibility, you know,

03:06that it could be all of those things at once

03:08was, I think, a big reason to making it work

03:13and why we worked well together, and also with John and Val, the directors,

03:16that I think we all knew what the tone wanted to be,

03:19and that was kind of key from the beginning.

03:21Yeah.

03:21Now, Paula, you're on double duty for this show.

03:25What was it like having to play opposite of yourself?

03:29It was new.

03:33I'd never done it before,

03:35and there was a learning curve

03:37because while it's not a new convention,

03:40there's no one way to do it.

03:42So I think through some camera tests and rehearsals,

03:46we zeroed in on the way that it was going to work best for us.

03:51And so it turned out that not having an acting double,

03:56but instead acting out the scene as both characters for the rehearsals

04:02and blocking and camera and all of that kind of thing

04:05was the way we would start it off,

04:08and then I would record the audio for both characters.

04:13And then whichever character was driving the scene

04:16is the one I would film first.

04:18And then I would use the audio track of what I had just recorded

04:21to play through my ear in a little thing called an earwig.

04:25I'd put it in my ear.

04:27And so I would act and pretend that I was opposite myself,

04:31but I wasn't really, I wasn't acting to anybody.

04:33But I would say the line,

04:35and then somebody off camera, off screen,

04:38would hit a button on an iPad.

04:40That it had all been, all the audio tracks had been synced up.

04:43So I'd get the response.

04:44So I'd hear myself.

04:47But it was important to me because I just thought

04:49if I act opposite a stand-in,

04:51even though you would never see his face

04:52or there was, you know, there's no face replacement or any of that,

04:55I would still be going off of whatever that other person was doing.

04:59And I didn't want that.

05:02Yeah.

05:02And what was fantastic about that

05:04was he had the ability to,

05:06before making the scene,

05:08construct in his brain

05:09how it was going to go

05:12and how both sides of the performances go

05:13and all the arcs and all of that.

05:15And that was necessary to achieve what he achieved,

05:19but also I thought really amazing

05:20that to be able to have that ability going into it.

05:22I mean, it's a lot like writing

05:23where you have in your head,

05:25here's how it's going to go.

05:25And he was able to, as you've talked about,

05:28like control both sides.

05:29And so he was really able to sculpt it the way that he wanted.

05:31And I thought it turned out fantastic for that.

05:33One of the challenges for us,

05:37I think, would be the eye lines.

05:39Because that was, honestly,

05:42as soon as we'd have a take,

05:46I would kind of change over

05:48into the other guy's clothes and hair and all that stuff.

05:52And then we'd have to set it

05:54so that it looked like we were looking at each other.

05:58And that became, I think,

06:00one of the real challenges

06:03is because we didn't want it to be,

06:05oh, a single of old Miles,

06:07and then turn around,

06:08and then you see the single of new Miles.

06:10And instead, try and find those opportunities

06:13where we can get both the characters in the same frame.

06:16And even have long one-ers

06:20where both characters are moving in and around each other

06:25and there are no cutaways.

06:28And those technical challenges

06:30take a lot of time to hammer out.

06:33Yeah.

06:34And I was even going to add,

06:35some of those fighting sequences,

06:37that must have been hard to choreograph.

06:39That was actually the one episode

06:43and there's a lot of fighting,

06:45was because of that fighting,

06:46we did have stand-ins and doubles

06:49and triples and quadruples.

06:51I mean, there were five other Pauls on those days

06:55on the same outfit sometimes.

06:56Oh, my gosh.

06:56Because you need it to see flips and fights.

06:59You need to have other bodies.

07:00You can't just overlay characters.

07:05And so it did look like a scene of multiplicity.

07:10Yeah.

07:10You'd turn around and say,

07:12hey, Paul.

07:12I was like, that's not Paul.

07:13Hey, God damn it, that's not Paul either.

07:15It was weird.

07:15That's amazing.

07:17Yeah, because it is cool

07:18because of the movement in the show is so fast,

07:21especially in those fighting sequences.

07:23Yeah.

07:24How weird was it to watch it all back in post

07:27because you didn't have someone else standing in for you.

07:29So it really must have been crazy to see double.

07:32It's gratifying to see that it works.

07:35You know, you were in post.

07:38He was, Tim was in the editing room every day.

07:40I wasn't.

07:42So you saw every kind of iteration.

07:47So it was probably more startling for me

07:50because when I saw it, it was kind of done.

07:55There were also times, though,

07:57even when we were shooting live,

07:58where he would, he can't see this.

08:00He's out there in space, but we could see an overlay.

08:03And so we could see live sometimes

08:05how the performances were matching up,

08:07and it was great.

08:08I mean, you'd be sitting there going like,

08:09oh, look at that, that was great, you know,

08:11trying to stay silent.

08:12And seeing it all come together.

08:13Sometimes you could hear Val, one of the directors,

08:17you'd hear her go like, yeah,

08:18react to how great something was going,

08:20and then we'd have to edit out that little sound.

08:22But we would, kind of, before I filmed the second character,

08:28we'd look at, study this take that we'd already completed.

08:33You know, it's like if I'm going and do old Miles

08:35and we've already filmed new Miles,

08:36I would look at new Miles, what we shot,

08:39and as we're standing, kind of huddled around the monitor,

08:44say, okay, all right, so I walk here,

08:46but then, oh, look, new Miles is picking up a tissue right there,

08:51and then he's throwing it in the garbage right there,

08:54and it's on that word.

08:56And so I would just think, okay, so when I hear that,

08:59I know that my eyes have to go like this,

09:01and I'm watching where I throw it away in the trash can.

09:04So it's a bit of choreography,

09:07and there was a real charge when it did work.

09:11And thankfully, because of just the technology,

09:16even though it's an overlay and it's shoddy,

09:18you at least get a general idea of like,

09:20okay, that really does, that will work together in an edit

09:24when we can, you know, really do the timing, right?

09:27But when we'd see it on a playback,

09:30it was like, it was very exciting.

09:32During that, I think that was that particular long shot,

09:35because it all has to work in one.

09:37It was like watching, you know, a sporting event

09:39where you're going like, oh, hey, yep, we got, what?

09:41Oh, yes, yes, we got it!

09:43You know, like, oh, that worked!

09:44Because you go for two minutes,

09:46and it's like, all right,

09:46I know there's 20 more seconds of this scene.

09:48And if something goes wrong, it's like,

09:50well, the whole thing's cracked, you know, it's a one-er.

09:53Yeah.

09:53Speaking of sporting event,

09:55you got a nice little cameo from Tom Brady in this.

10:00Leaving a day spa, no less,

10:03how did you swing that,

10:04and what was the process of having him on set?

10:06We asked him.

10:09Yeah.

10:09And he, first he had to finish a little something called winning the Super Bowl,

10:14but once he was done with that,

10:16he was able to get back to us.

10:17Getting to the Super Bowl,

10:18and then winning the Super Bowl, yeah.

10:20Yeah.

10:22He became only more of a perfect clone while we were shooting.

10:27We asked him, and he eventually said yes.

10:30That was, you know.

10:31He wrote an email, you know, right?

10:33Yeah.

10:33That's great.

10:34But it was very, it was really exciting because while we were filming it,

10:39we thought, well, who else, who else can we use?

10:42Because the odds that Tom Brady are going to say yes to being in our show

10:45are probably slim.

10:48So we're elated that he said yes, first of all,

10:51and he was a great man.

10:53That was a really cool day.

10:54But he also is the perfect example of somebody who just,

11:02it seems to be a 10 in every category.

11:05And so while we came up with other people that could possibly,

11:10that we could go to to play that part,

11:14they all seem like second choices in a way because Tom Brady's...

11:21Compaired.

11:21Yeah.

11:22Comparatively.

11:22Yeah, yeah.

11:23It's he, yeah, he's the benchmark right there.

11:26He's everything, yeah.

11:27I mean, he's my life.

11:27Everybody else has six rings and is playing at 42 and...

11:32And now he's doing it again.

11:33What are they, 5-0, 6-0?

11:35Yeah.

11:36Yeah.

11:37As a diehard Chiefs fan, though, Paul, how'd you feel about having Tom Brady?

11:41It was really, really, it was, it was, it was pain.

11:46It was hard because I'm not a Patriots fan and I'm a Chiefs fan, as you say.

11:52This was not that long after the Chiefs lost to the Patriots in the championship game.

11:57So, it was a series of emotions and, you know, ultimately the football fan in me won out

12:11because I don't care, and I've had this conversation with my son, who is not a Patriots fan.

12:19To be a fan of the sport, or to be a fan of just any sport, you have to just respect and be impressed

12:32by the abilities of anybody that excels like that.

12:38And so, I was really excited to meet somebody who was just that good.

12:43And he was a, I mean, really like a lovely guy.

12:47He was a great dude, and I got to, and he was very open talking about the team,

12:52talking about, you know, being Tom Brady.

12:56I said, you know, like, what is that like to live in Boston and be Tom Brady?

13:00Yeah.

13:02You know, get it, and he's forthcoming about so many things and was so easy to be around

13:09that, you know, I came away, it's like, I'm a Tom Brady fan.

13:13That guy is pretty, pretty awesome.

13:15So, going off the premise of the show, if you guys were to clone yourselves, what would

13:22a new and improved version of Tim Greenberg and Paul Rudd look like?

13:28I don't know if there is one.

13:30I'd be six inches taller.

13:32Yeah, me too.

13:33I think I would be less quick to anger, perhaps.

13:40I would be less, you know, I'd be more willing to go take that dance rather than sit in the

13:46corner and not have as much fun as I probably should have.

13:50I'd probably be annoying because of it, you know, the on guy, but, you know.

13:57What about fears?

13:58Would you have any fears that would be eradicated?

14:00I mean, that's kind of the whole thing, you know.

14:03I mean, yeah, about a thousand fears.

14:05I mean, I think that's the difference between the two characters is the new one doesn't have

14:09as much fear.

14:09He doesn't have as much fear of failure or of anything, of, you know, getting burned from

14:14the stove.

14:14And so it opens him up and allows him to be, you know, open to the world and to be unselfish.

14:20I think that selfishness is driven by fear, really, you know.

14:24So that would be great, but I also feel like that person would get to be tiresome after

14:29a while, you know.

14:30So I'll try to get there.

14:32How about you?

14:33Nothing.

14:33You don't need to clone me.

14:35I think you're right.

14:36He doesn't.

14:37No, I mean, I think the first thing you said about quick to anger, you know, I think

14:41patience, I would like to maybe have a bit more.

14:45I feel like I've had more of it at other points in my life.

14:51So that's a, that's, I've actually said that.

14:54And everybody's like, yeah, same.

14:56Sweet dick alike.

14:59And yeah, certain fears, fears hold us back in every single way.

15:05And if we can get rid of those, we can do a lot of really good things.

15:09Well, I think I am looking at the best version of both of you guys.

15:12And again, you did a wonderful job creating the show, acting in the show.

15:17And thank you guys again for being here.

15:19Thank you so much.

Paul Rudd Talks Playing Opposite Himself in 'Living With Yourself' & That Tom Brady Cameo | In Studio

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