Paul Rudd on Why Jack Black is The Best, Worst Auditions, Chiefs Fandom & Naming Your Nuts | EP 171

0:00One of your first jobs was as a bar mitzvah DJ. Yeah. What was on the playlist? I mean, you got Shout from Animal House. Classic. Ooh. A little bit louder. There was also, here we come now singing money, money. And then all the kids, they say, get laid, get. All the grandparents go, hmm? What? What?

0:31Welcome back to New Heights, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. A Wondery Show, and we are your hosts. I'm Travis Kelsey. This is my big brother, Jason Kelsey, out of Cleveland Heights, Ohio, University of Cincinnati grads. Shout out to all the Bearcats out there. And let's go Bearcats basketball. Come on, baby. Come on, baby. Let's go, man. Let's take the Big 12 by storm, baby, by storm. Subscribe on YouTube, Wondery Plus, wherever you get your podcasts, and follow the show on all social media at new heights show with one s for clips throughout the week or just to catch up on all the fun shit me and jason have been doing uh jason wants to tell the people what we have coming up this episode 92 we got a great episode coming up we got a great guest episode that's right joining us today is the first guest we ever had on the show yes sir paul ron is here

1:20We're going to talk about everything from his new movie, Anaconda, coming out, working with the one and only Jack Black. We're also going to find out if he knows Ball and so much more. So stick around. Check it out. Here we go. In three, two, one. All righty. Our guest today is an actor, producer, screenwriter from the University of Kansas. You know him from Nocturne. This is 40. I love you, man. Anchorman, Parks and Rec, White Hot American Summer, and his upcoming movie, Anaconda. He's the guy who made Ant-Man cool, a diehard Chiefs fan, and the 2021 sexiest man alive, and the first ever guest on New Heights.

2:02That's right. Please welcome back 92 %ers, Mr. Paul Rowe. Hell yeah. Oh, yeah. It's good to be back with you guys. Welcome back, my brother. Thank you for having me. It's good to see you as it's always good to see you guys. Is that true first? Yeah. You wish me a happy birthday, man. Travis had a birthday. Oh, I remember that. And you surprised guested. You know what I remember most from that? It was your birthday, Trav. And we were laughing. And then we started talking about our dads and we just wound up crying. That's exactly what happened. It's like, happy birthday. And we were all bawling our heads off.

2:39That's a good dad, dude. That's the best, man. I felt like that's not why you wanted me on. It is. It is. It's exactly what I needed. I needed to get reminded that I have an amazing dad on my birthday. And I had to thank him for that. So this is great, man. Well, I appreciate you coming back on. You're obviously in the middle of promoting Anaconda, dude. Yeah. The last thing, I kind of remember talking to you a little bit over the summer about this at the Big Slick, dude. That's right. Yeah, baby. And you were mentioning it, and I was like all giddy in the seat, like getting ready. Like, dude, you guys are really doing this?

3:11Yeah. This is so fucking cool, man. And you and Jack Black, everyone's always fucking love the duo of seeing you guys just interact here and there. And now they get to see it on the big screen, baby. He's the best. He's the best. He's one of one, Jack Black. Dude, unbelievable. Multi-talented. Multi-varied musical talent. Yeah. He's like a comedy tsunami. He's a tornado of talent. There we go. The alliteration god. He is. He's like that Tasmanian devil. I got to know, who had this idea? Where did this come from? The guy who wrote this script is a guy named Kevin Etten. And he wrote it with another guy.

3:55He's kind of his partner. He's a guy named Tom Gormekin. They had done another movie previous to this called The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, which I would highly recommend this movie. Nicholas Cage is in it playing himself. and Pedro Pascal is in it playing a guy who's just really into Nicolas Cage. And it's hilarious. And it's this weird meta comedy. It's just so smart and original. And so I loved that movie. I saw it like four times. And when this script showed up, it was from these guys. I'm like, oh, my God, they made that amazing movie. And I started reading and started laughing just because it's similar in that people think it's a remake of anaconda but it's really not it's it's these these idiots that try and remake and so it's kind of you know the indie way yeah and then while we're trying to make this you know we're not filmmakers we were just kids that used to make movies together because it was fun and then we're now you know all old and our lives are not they haven't worked out the way we expected them to so we kind of throw caution to the wind and try and recapture the magic and pursue our dream of finally making a movie we're going to reboot reimagine our favorite movie anaconda and then we go down and then we start getting hunted by a real anaconda it's it's epic it's so dumb it's epic dude i fucking loved every second of it man absolutely thanks man i gotta do so you mentioned uh a bunch of a bunch of friends that used to make movies as kids yeah when you were a kid in high school and middle school, like, like, was there ever like a camcorder, like a house, like family camcorder that you use to like do stuff like this in the backyard?

5:44Absolutely. This is like, this was, that was my favorite thing to do. I had the camera, you know, I mean, I'm a fossil. So I had the, I had the camcorder that you put the videotape in the side of it and then close it. And then I would just, you know, hit the button to record. I would self-edit through the camera. Through the camera. Oh, wow. I was going to say. This is I edit. Stop, start, stop, start. And so I would, yeah, we made, I made movies with buddies of mine. I did it all through college. And I thought they were so funny. And I watch them back. It's like, these are terrible. These are unbelievable.

6:30It was the experience though, man. You get your feet wet. Do you remember any of the names of the movies? One of the things that I used to do with a buddy of mine named Guy Garvin, and we did a series of, they were, Hey Garvin. They were the Hey Garvin series. It started where it was like, Hey Garvin, toss me a beer, would you? And he would just always say, all right. And he'd be in another room somewhere. And then he would throw a beer and through these cuts, it would fly around corners and it was you know and then we did about 10 of them and they just got more and more elaborate outside inside it you know this is gold this is gold i asked i asked that because jason did the exact same thing you know i'm going here jason had and jason you can go ahead and tell them the uh the gist of it but i just remembered the name of it being ribs of beef That was one of the movies we made.

7:27I was in a satire class in high school, and we reimagined the Rumpelstiltskin movie, her story as a movie about a king that just wanted KFC chicken. And somehow ribs of beef would spin something into fried chicken. It was so stupid. Looking back, I was like, what are we doing? But I loved, we were the next wave of it. I would go on iMovie. I made Travis's highlight films. I would make like highlight films for the team. Oh, really? I love messing around with all that stuff. It was so fun. So watching this film, like the Squatch portion was like so just like, oh my gosh, this is hitting home right now.

8:08Yeah. It was awesome. It is a thing I think a lot of kids do. Yeah. They did kind of growing up. And that's, you know, I definitely related to that part of the story. You know, when you're that age and you're talking to your friends like, we could do this. we can do this you see us on the screen people would freak out if they saw how good these videos are that we're making i'm really glad that um they're not on uh on youtube because i exactly now it's like these these are on watch that's that was the fun of it though because jason's jason's the same way his was on the old school like family camcorder or like the school camcorder that he used so this is like ancient artifact like you it sends somebody's parents storage that they just pop out every like few like decades and it's just like unless your dad records law and order over top of it which legitimately we're a family a family video cuts to the law and order intro in the middle of it like that are you so good man well my wife was um pregnant with our son jack who you guys know um That's my guy.

9:23Julie Watch watches so much Law & Order. Like it's on a loop all day, all the time. And then when Jack was a baby, when Law & Order would come on, I mean, he couldn't even walk. He's like on the couch kind of half sleeping. When the dun-dun-dun-dun, he would just pop up. And he was so used to kind of when he was inside hearing that theme. It was like a dog whistle for him. So it is a catchy tune, man. It is. You and Jack Black star in this thing. In terms of like how it came together for your guys' role, did you guys come together on this or did you take it to him? Did he take it to you? Did the writers already have this kind of like mapped out that they wanted you guys to take this role on together or what?

10:15I got sent this script and I read it and thought it was really smart and funny. And I hadn't really seen anything quite like it. But it was kind of still a work in progress. So I started kind of trying to work with them and start to develop it a little bit more with them. They were writing it. I didn't, I didn't write any of it, but we had talked about it for months and months and I was real gung ho to, to do it. and, um, something else had come up and it wasn't really set up. And then I got this message that, Oh, Jack Black read it and he wants to do it. And I, I've worked with Jack a couple of times, but never like this.

10:55And we've done little bits, you know, in things in the past. And I really, I mean, I love Jack. He's the greatest as we all know. And, um, so I thought, Oh, I'm going to call him because if he's doing it, I really like, this is, I would be so much fun. And so we were talking on the phone and we're kind of like, yeah, all right, you're going to do it. Yes. Let's do it. And we talked for like a good 15 minutes and, uh, and then he's, and he goes, oh yeah. And then when you do this and this, and I'm doing this and this, and I realized as he saying i'm like wait a minute which part were you thinking thinking which i was playing the director doug which is he goes i was gonna play doug i saw you as griff i said oh i was imagining i was doug and yeah you were griff i saw you he's like oh i was uh and then i was like i'll just play griff and then literally how it happened we just like all right i'll just play that part um so we made this decision never consulting the director yeah not the right thing to do but um but that's how that's how it happened and i think that we were both really excited at the idea of uh working together because you know we've talked about it for a long time and i'm the number one jack black fan so so fucking cool i always thought jason had a little jack black in him yeah you know i've been a fan of jack for a long time yeah no you guys are kind of you guys are kind of cut from the same cloth i think you have you have that i wish i had an ounce of that guy's talent creativity you do too travis there's like kind of a there's a there's an alpha quality but there's just like a good there's like a good time charlie thing built in kind of hardwired in in you guys and but jack is on a whole other level like he's on another stratosphere i remember seeing him He, his first movie was this movie called Bob Roberts.

12:54Okay. This is in the nineties. And I went to go see it as a Tim Robbins movie. And he was just, it was his first thing. He was like a small part, but I remember vividly. I'm like, who is that guy? Cause he's so psycho and funny. And, and he, he just played a guy who was just really into the politician, Bob Roberts. And, um, and, uh, God, a few weeks after I saw it, I had an audition and I went to this audition, there was like one other guy in the waiting room waiting to audition and it was him. And, um, I was like, Oh, I got completely starstruck. And I'm like, Hey man, um, I just saw Bob Roberts.

13:34You're the guy from Bob Roberts, right? He's like, yep. And I said, you, you were so funny in that. Oh my God. And meanwhile, and I got, we're auditioning for the same part. There's no way I'm getting close to this thing. It's going to this talent machine. Neither one of us got the part, but that was the first time that I met him. Yeah. I mean, that was probably God, that was 30 years ago. Yeah. He doesn't feel like he's changed either. He feels like he's the same guy, which is like impressive to like maintain that level of energy throughout your entire career. It's really wild. I mean, we, you know, I, to be with him and you're just kind of like out in public when people see him they freak out you know it's like it's like meeting a beetle or something they're just to see jack black out in the wild and everyone that kind of goes to over to him and talks to him he gives them a jack black experience he's just he just he is he's just pure goodness and energy and um yeah i i'm i i love the guy and it seems effortless man it just it oozes out of him, man.

14:40It's so smooth. Yeah. And, um, and you know, I'm sure it's like he's got insecurities or fears or self-conscious about what you would, but he just you would never know if he does. He just doesn't show it. He's just kind of he really is about laughs and a good time and rocking and rocking hard because he's, if he wasn't an actor, he's a rock. He is a rock star. Laughs a good time and rocking is what this movie does. And it also gave us one of our new terms i had never heard uh buffalo sober is that a real term is that did you guys invent that yeah we're set we live in buffalo um and steve zahn uh plays a guy who's maybe maybe had wrestled with some demons has had some you know that's a good way to put it he's decided to really he does he's decided to really clean up his act finally and uh so i asked are you sober and he says yes uh but he's Buffalo sober, which means just beer and wine and maybe a few of the liquors.

15:44Lighter. Lighter. It's like a lighter liquor. The real light. Not all of them. Light liquors. I kind of want to go Buffalo sober. I'm kind of in the Buffalo sober. This sounds great. We were driving the director and everyone was crazy because every time we would do that CD, he goes, oh, Buffalo sober. And we just keep going, Buffalo sober in the heart of my manica. That's great. What would the equivalent to Kansas City sober be? What would that be? Kansas City sober? Just Boulevard. Nice. Just Boulevard. And Rieger. Just Boulevard and Rieger. That's right. Only local brews. Only local. And you can only have Rieger when you're eating barbecue.

16:25That's right. There you go. Jason, what do you got? Philly sober. Oh, like there is such a thing. The Citywide special, I think, is a shot of Jim Beam and a PBR, a canned PBR. Delicious. Anywhere in the city, you should be able to get that for like a dollar or something like that. Maybe it was two bucks. I don't know if that's still out there, but that was a citywide special for a long time. You're looking to get out of a hole in Philly. That's right. There you go. Or go into a hole. Head over to Pat's. Patrigino's, Angelo's. Is there Jim's? There's a Tony is in there too. There's a Tony Luke's, I think it's called.

17:01Tony Luke's. I mean, pretty much any Italian name and put cheese steak after it. It was probably a cheese steak spot in Philadelphia. Yeah. We did prep some questions for Jack. Do you mind answering for him as him? Sure. Yeah. All right. All right. What was it like to work with Paul? He sucks.

17:22Perfect. All right. He's a real diva. Pain in the ass. Always checking his hair, making sure he has the most lines. I hated him. he actually wanted to play Doug. Did he tell you that? Yeah. I tried to steal my part.

17:40So, uh, Jack, you went to high school with Maya Rudolph. What was, uh, what was that like growing up with Maya? It was, uh, it was, it was incredible. She was, she was all over me. And it was, it was a little hard. She was always funny. I always really liked I would always I think it was that she would always hear me singing Minnie Riperton songs that's her mom and because I'm such a great singer I was always in key and I'd hit that high C and I don't know it triggered something in her so she was just always hanging around it got awkward all through our 20s but we're good now, we're cool your parents Judith and Thomas were actual rocket scientists How did they react when you told them you wanted to be an actor?

18:33They knew that I wasn't going to really be able to do much of anything else. They were just happy to kind of get me out of the house and focused on something. Really, all I wanted to do was play video games and listen to Led Zeppelin and ACDC in my room. So when I said I wanted to do something, honestly, it's like I could have said I wanted to be, you know, a tax collector. I wanted to be a dog walker. I want to be the day just saying, yeah, great. We support you. We support you. Get out. Get out of the house. We're rocket scientists, for God's sake. Obviously, these kinds of brains are not genetic.

19:14That was fucking perfect. Golly. The funniest quote from my dad when I got drafted was that, both my kids have a job. I've done my part.

19:28That's it. That's all there was to it. I won. Good luck. Thank you to our sponsor, American Express. There's nothing like going from a relaxing airport lounge to an even more relaxing hotel, followed by dinner, a concert, and then doing it all over again. And again and again. And with the newly enhanced American Express Platinum card, membership just got a whole lot better. With MX Platinum, you can enjoy access to over 1 ,550 airport lounges through the largest global lounge network in the world as compared to other credit card companies this July. Lounge access means having a place to take it all in before you need to take off.

20:09And with the travel this season in full swing, the Centurion Lounge is the perfect place to enjoy carefully curated meals. Recharge your devices and get ahead of the holiday shopping. With an array of premium travel, dining, and entertainment benefits all backed by American Express's award-winning service, there's nothing like platinum. Terms apply. Learn more at AmericanExpress.com slash with platinum. It's time to thank our partner. Who's that? Reese's or Reese's, however you like to call it. I'm pretty sure they would like us to say Reese's. So we're going to say Reese's and their perfect holiday companion, their Reese's Trees.

20:47Oh, they are so good. Nothing says the holiday like Reese's, perfect peanut butter stuffed chocolate trees. They might be the best holiday candy ever. it's up for debate every holiday tradition is better when you add reese's trees holiday movies yeah i mean those go definitely better with reese's trees ugly sweater parties i mean who doesn't like chocolate stains all over their ugly sweater i do skipping the ugly sweater party to watch football in your sweats instead i mean that's a no-brainer of course i mean you throw on that ugly sweater anyways yeah so celebrate the season with peanut butter perfection and be sure to grab Reese's trees today.

21:28Jason, why don't you tell them where to get them from? Well, it's found wherever candy is sold. Literally, you can find it everywhere. I think I called you Jason. Jason. Jason. All right, Gillette, thank you to our partner, Gillette. All right, now, Jason, you've been retired for a full year. Let's talk pregame rituals. Do you miss them? Still have them? I kind of have one, I guess, for Monday Night Countdown. Like I kind of go to the production meeting. Then I kind of iron out what's happening in the rundown. Then I go to the makeup lady. Then I go to the hair. And then I go on set. I was just curious to see if you were putting that same game day energy into your new broadcasting routine.

22:13That's all. Well, first and foremost, it includes making sure that this beard is looking real nice, which is finally starting to show some of my grades again. After dying it, I'm getting those natural colors. back thank you thanks so much um but yeah i have a uh some some grooming individuals that make sure it's looking nice and tidy if you were looking for a tool to help wrangle it in a little bit look no further than gillette labs nfl licensed razor special edition razors have those long lasting gillette labs blades and the precision trimmer on the back that's perfect for cleaning up this guy nice i hear it's a must have for nfl fans this season and clearly you too sold available now 12 teams including the eagles and chiefs get it while you can at gillette.com slash nfl gillette the best a fan can get all right now next segment we're gonna do a little does paul no ball baby does paul no ball our staff uh plays a game which uh wastes a lot of their time is called the nfl perry pickham you'll be given teams at random and have to select one player from the team to add to a fantasy lineup all right so you get points for their best fantasy season um and the goal is to get the most points possible make sense no i wasn't paying attention but i'll figure it out yeah basically you just want to pick the best fantasy lineup yeah i got Got you.

23:45Nice. So you get quarterback, running back, two wide receivers, a tight end, and two flexes. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers. You can pick anybody from their roster. Anybody. Okay. And then so like if I were to. Oh, no, no, no. No, you just picked the team. I don't even know how this goes. No, no, no. You're going to pick a player. A quarterback throughout history from the Buccaneers. Correct. And so if I'm taking Tom Brady, the Patriots' stats don't count. It has to be when he was with the Buccaneers. I think he might've had his best season in Tampa Bay though. That's true. Really? And then it's like, that's the name of the game.

24:22You got to fight does ball, no ball. You know, Doug Williams, Doug Williams. I don't know if any of those stats were compiled for fantasy back in that day. I'll go with, um, you can also go running back receiver. You don't have to go quarterback. You don't have to go. Whatever. Oh, Oh, Oh, I got you. Oh, it's not the whole team. Oh, I see. I got you. Only offensive players, though, so you can't take that great defense. They won the Super Bowl. Yeah. Oh, man. I'll go Mike Evans. There we go. Love it. Love it. Great pick. All-nose ball. New York football giants. New York football giants. I'll go giants.

25:10Oh, there's no defense in there, is there? no okay um

25:18i know i know travis would go who jeremy shockey i love the shockey man shockey was my guy i knew you were going shockey you might want to take a flex got obj in there of course obj i like obj i'm gonna go obj in my flex no no beckham jr baby early and primal you need apples colds this is where it gets I'm gonna go oh man

25:51what to do is tough here's where I'm weighing between Peyton Manning and Marvin Harrison yeah it's tough Peyton did set the record when he was in Denver take the quarterback when you can get him You don't want to be stuck all of a sudden. Yeah. That's where you go. Peyton Manning. The Sheriff. The Sheriff. Seattle Seahawks. I'll go Sean Alexander running back. Ooh. Great pick. Yes. Paul knows Paul. Cardinals. I'm going to go Larry Fitzgerald. Yes. The hardened pride of the Big East. Pittsburgh. Denver Broncos. Denver Broncos. I will go Terrell Davis in that last flex spot. Ooh, TD. We're coming down to tight end.

26:47All right. Wouldn't it be all too coincidental the Kansas City Chiefs showed up? All right. I hope so. Right. Because I got two great picks for that. Oh, there we go. You can go multiple directions to that. He's not. How is Terrell Davis not an option? Oh, it doesn't go back. They got a bunch of running backs there. You could go. Clinton Portis. Portis did have some really tight end. Oh, you could go tight end here. Peyton Hillis had his big year in Cleveland. He did. He did. Made the Madden cover. You could go. Shannon Sharp in there, too. Shannon Sharp. Oh, man. You can always go Unk. Who? Unk.

27:31Shannon Sharp. Yeah, I call him Unk. like my uncle. Oh, right, right. Of course. I'll go Clinton Portis. That's a solid. That's a solid. Very good pick. Oh! Philly for tight end, baby. I mean, I think... There's only three choices. We got Chad Lewis. We got Brent Settling. I also have all these guys on teams. You see, baby. Exactly.

28:03Oh, man. Ertz. Those are good choices. I'm going Ertz. That's the right statistical choice. He still has the record for all-time catches as a tight end. This is a great team. Dude, this is a solid fan. I don't even know what we're looking at. Is that a good score? Yeah. What was the score? What was the score? 2 ,269.9. Ball-nosed ball. Ball-nosed ball. You know what it is? Here's the thing. The flex, those are the ones that probably lowered me a little bit. Look at how much Portis and Odell got you. That's a crazy amount. They were more than Mike Evans was, which is crazy. It's crazy to even think about like that.

28:47So it's only off of their best season. That's what it looks like. It goes off of one season. I was thinking about when also Doug Martin had a really great season at running back for the Bucs. Yeah. All right. Doug Martin had one for sure. Yeah. Yeah, 100%. He was a fucking running through shit. I would have gone freaking, oh, my gosh, Mike Allstott. That was my freaking, I love him. 4-4, baby. He's a bowling ball. Might not add the fantasy points. He's not going to give me many points in the game, but, yeah, it'll be good. What are these for? Intimidation. Well, Paul does indeed know ball. He does.

29:26Well done. Well done, baby. Thanks, guys. And now we get into our last segment. But before we get you out of here, it's called We Gotta Ask, brother. And it's a questions that we feel like we have to ask you and you can just either answer them or tell us to fuck off. All right. As a brother and a chiefs fan, I love you. I'm sorry, but how are you feeling as a chiefs fan right now? Ah, I'm thinking about you, brother. Ah, no, you shot me the text. I appreciate you, man. I am so happy to be a chiefs fan, the joy and the memories and everything that the chiefs have given me with my family, with my kid.

30:01Um, Um, it's been an embarrassment of riches and it's just right now. And it's like this, you know what, this wasn't the year, but that's okay. I know it's tough. I'm excited for whoever does it for their fan base that they get to share the same kind of things that I got to share with my son for all three of those victories. Um, and even the losses, you know, it's, it's the, it's the best. So I'm, I'm thinking about Patrick. I'm wishing him a speedy recovery, um, and everything for the club, but I I'm okay. And I'm excited. You know what? I'm excited for some of the players to get maybe a little bit of a summer vacation.