Some Hollywood stars spend a ridiculous amount of money on looking youthful. Others, like Paul Rudd, are lucky to come about it fairly naturally. Rudd, whose Hollywood break came from starring in Clueless and later about every Judd Apatow movie ever made, has more recently earned equal acclaim for his portrayal of Scott Lang in Marvel’s Ant-Man franchise. 

Rudd quickly became known for his baby face and youthful appearance when he first came on the scene, but that reputation hasn’t disappeared in the intervening decades. He still has a reputation for looking at least a decade younger than he actually is. And while Rudd might be blessed with ridiculously good genes, he also takes some extremely practical steps to keep his health a priority. For most of them, there’s very little cost involved. 

Paul Rudd is known for his comedic roles and for looking eternally youthful 

Rudd quickly became known for his acting chops in buddy comedies like Anchorman, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Comedy continues to be a staple in his work, but he also made the jump into superhero status as Scott Lang in the Ant-Man movies starting in 2015. 

Along the way, he became synonymous with the eternal youthfulness that is so coveted in Hollywood. Despite now being 53, Rudd is decidedly not the weathered, slightly wrinkly version of the middle aged. The youthfulness is part of what landed him People’s Sexiest Man Alive distinction in 2021, and it’s a topic he’s frequently asked about.

In a Q&A during the Clueless cast reunion in 2019, Rudd joked that what people see is all a ruse. “I’m 80 years old on the inside,” Rudd told the crowd, according to the Chicago Tribune. He pointed to his chest: “In here, pure darkness — and a little moisturizer.”

Paul Rudd says getting 8 hours of sleep is essential to his health 

While moisturizer might play a part in Rudd’s skincare routine, along with sunscreen to avoid cancer, the actor says the most vital part to his health has nothing to do with what he puts on his face. It has everything to do, instead, with how many hours he’s sleeping. In a recent interview with Men’s Health, Rudd held his hand at eye level and ticked off the level of importance of each aspect of his training, noting at the top is “sleep,” followed by “diet,” “weights,” and, finally, “cardio.”

According to the actor, people will ask him if he has a cheat day, or if he eats carbs, or if he consumes alcohol. “The most important part of training is sleep,” Rudd reiterated. “People will set their alarm and then sleep for four hours, and they’ll get up so that they can train. They’re doing themselves a disservice. He said what’s most important is if “you can somehow get eight hours of sleep.”

But it all plays a part. Rudd does care about what goes in his body, and he has a fitness routine, too. He eats a lot of eggs and drinks plenty of protein shakes (just the protein and water; no sweet additives and no fruit.) He aims to lift weights three times a week, and does cardio workouts first thing in the morning. “I never would’ve done that before [Ant-Man],” he told Men’s Health. 

Paul Rudd struggled more to get in shape for ‘Quantumania’ than for other ‘Ant-Man’ films

For the first Ant-Man movie, Rudd cut sugar and alcohol, hired trainers, and lifted weights. He did it consistently, too: The transformation into a superhero took Rudd roughly a year. The goal was to be in fighting shape — enough to be shirtless, on a movie screen, without irony. “Every shirtless scene I had ever done was for comedy’s sake,” Rudd said of his first foray into superhero preparations. “I had no business doing a shirtless scene [in a superhero movie].” In subsequent Marvel projects, he’s done mini versions of that prep. 

However, the prep work for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania was more intense that previous reboots. That’s largely because he finished filming the Apple TV+ miniseries The Shrink Next Door right before Quantumania. In it, he plays a 70-year-old man. It doesn’t matter what kind of genes you have: Believable 70-year-olds don’t have washboard abs and defined biceps. They’re definitely not superhero-ready. 

“I worked really hard to get back into shape for Quantumania, and I realized, ‘Oh my God, this is so much harder than it was [for the last Ant-Man project].’ I had fallen off more than I had in the past,” Rudd said. He added, “I was irritable and self-conscious. I just wasn’t in a good mood. I really beat myself up.”

For Rudd, having a definitive deadline helped in the process of getting back to the fitness level where he wanted to be. “I can be a hyper-focused person if I have a goal,” he said. “If I’m doing one of these movies and I know that in four months I have to do a shirtless scene, I’m pretty dialed in.” Fans can check out Rudd’s superhero physique and youthful appearance in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, now in theaters.

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