Paul Rudd is lovely. He shows up in movies where I least expect him, and then he just steals every scene he’s in. He’s got that wonderful droll, subdued humor that works wonders on good, bad and in-between scripts. He’s good-looking without being pretty, he’s a dude without being a misogynist, and edgy without being threatening. Just when I think Hollywood’s gone to hell in handbasket, I remember that for all of Hollywood’s problems, at least they’ve found a place for an actor like Paul Rudd.

It’s no surprise that Paul Rudd gives a great interview. In this Time Magazine profile, written by Joel Stein, I actually laughed at loud. It’s a great read, and I’d recommend reading the entire thing at Time. Rudd gave the interview to promote his new film I Love You Man, about a guy getting married who realizes he has no male friends, and goes on an epic search for a “man friend”. Rudd and Stein decide to spend the entire interview sitting in a bar, trolling for a new “man friend” to see how difficult it really is. Joel Stein calls it “the gayest journey ever”.

Not so surprisingly, it’s really easy for Rudd to make new friends. Rudd even had very specific ideas about what he wanted in a new friend:

For the first half-hour, all the guys we like walk right by, piling into the back of the bar for a reading by debut novelist Stephen Lovely. I wonder if maybe we should have gone to a sports bar, but Rudd seems to know what he’s after. “If we went to ESPN Zone — that’s not our kind of guy,” he says. “We want someone nerdy. Bookish. Probably wears Chuck Taylors. Can make jokes about the fact that he’s listening to the new Fleet Foxes CD. Maybe a little fey. I love straight guys that seem gay. I’m a little like that.”

From Time Magazine

Rudd went to college with Mad Men’s Jon Hamm, which I didn’t know. Hamm calls his friend “adorable”, which I absolutely love. Many of Rudd’s man friends take this opportunity to tell funny/embarrassing stories about him:

…But for a soft guy, his comedy can be pretty dude. He’s both the kind of guy who indulges his 4-year-old son’s habit of dressing up in three-piece suits and one whose friends view a TIME magazine article as an opportunity to tell embarrassing stories about him. “He always liked to get naked. Anybody that lived in his fraternity house would tell you. And yes, he is a frat boy, no matter how much he would go screaming from that now,” says sportscaster Joe Buck, who, along with Mad Men star Jon Hamm, has known Rudd since their college days.

Buck says the ass-slapping, gun-shooting dance Rudd did with Beyoncé when he hosted Saturday Night Live in November was his typical way of leaving a room in college. He built on those skills when he moved to L.A. after graduation, deejaying high-end Bel Air bar mitzvahs. “He was known as the guy who did the dork dance,” Buck says. Even then, with his mullet and Duran Duran jacket, people thought he was cool.

“He’s adorable. There’s no two ways about it,” says Hamm. For an adorable guy, though, Rudd has depth. “He has a bit of a postmodern Jimmy Stewart quality. He’s an everyman who has a dark side that peeks out from the edges,” says Donald De Line, a producer of I Love You, Man.

From Time Magazine

Eventually, Stein and Rudd find a man friend who is just their type. They get a married 31-year-old investment banker with glasses and a Lisa Kudrow fetish. The guy is totally into it, too, saying: “We’re three married dudes. I wonder if there’s a thrill of the chase missing from our hormones that we’re searching for.” Rudd agrees, and Stein makes note of the fact that “This exchange does not sound as gay as it does poignant and questioning.”

Paul Rudd is shown outside the Late Show on 3/10/09. Jon Hamm is shown on 2/7/09. Credit: Wenn.com/Fayes Vision