Paul Rudd talks about his busy month: ‘Ghostbusters’ sequel, a TV series, ‘Ant-Man 3’

Paul Rudd is having a busy No-Shave November.

First he plays a bearded therapist alongside his “Anchorman” co-star Will Ferrell in Apple TV+’s “The Shrink Next Door,” debuting Nov. 12.

A week later, he’s a bearded teacher, the latest answer to “Who ya gonna call?” in the new “Ghostbusters: Afterlife.”

But Rudd, who grew up in Overland Park, is still busy filming the latest Marvel marvel, 2023’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” in London, clean-shaven, we hear.

In July there, he dined with “Schitt’s Creek” star Dan Levy, which revved up social media buzz when the restaurant’s chef posted an image with the pair. No, Levy does not have a role in the next “Ant-Man,” but given Rudd’s track record of working with friends, there are always future possibilities.

In a recent virtual interview with The Star, Rudd, 52, says it was his friendship with “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” writer/director Jason Reitman (“We sometimes do these live readings of classic films”) that led to Rudd playing the film’s Mr. Grooberson, a summer school teacher who announces to the class, “I don’t want to be here. You don’t want to be here. Let’s just watch ‘Cujo.’”

“I thought, I wish I had this kind of teacher,” Rudd says. He previously played a teacher in the 2012 film “The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” and though he didn’t base any of the teachers he’s played on the real-life teachers he grew up with, he’s quick to salute “the greatest teacher I ever had,” Sally Shipley, who for years taught speech and forensics at Shawnee Mission West High School not only to Rudd (class of ’87) but to his fellow Big Slick Celebrity Weekend host and West alum Jason Sudeikis (class of ’94).

“If you mention the name Sally Shipley in Kansas City,” Rudd says, “there are thousands of people who were so affected by her, and so I always think of that whenever I’m playing any kind of teacher role. I know Sudeikis does, too.”

(For her part, Shipley has told The Star that Rudd was one of her most talented students — and one of the silliest.)

Rudd says after reading the script for the new “Ghostbusters,” which brings back some of the actors and characters from the 1984 original (directed by Jason Reitman’s father, Ivan Reitman), he was sold.

“What a perfect way to continue this story about these people (from the original) and I was moved by it,” Rudd says. “And I thought, oh, wow, what a cool and amazing thing to be a part of.”

In this sequel, Carrie Coon is a single mother who brings her two kids (Finn Wolfhard of “Stranger Things” and Mckenna Grace of “Malignant”) to live in the dilapidated house of her late father, none other than Egon Spengler (the late Harold Ramis) of the original “Ghostbusters.”

Rudd’s Mr. Grooberson is a seismologist, and knows a thing or two about paranormal occurrences.

Although Rudd is primarily known for his film roles, he’s never been shy about taking parts on TV. One of his earliest roles — even before his breakout part in the 1995 Alicia Silverstone comedy “Clueless” — was co-starring in Fox’s “Wild Oats,” a 20-something sitcom that premiered in September 1994 (and was canceled weeks later) around the same time as “Friends,” where Rudd would eventually have a recurring role as Phoebe’s boyfriend.

More recently, Rudd had a recurring role on NBC’s “Parks and Recreation” as a rich politician and starred in Netflix’s “Living With Yourself,” which was always intended to last just one season, Rudd says, and Netflix’s “Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp” (2015), co-created by Michael Showalter, who ended up directing the first four episodes of “The Shrink Next Door.”

Rudd says Showalter told him to listen to the 2019 Wondery podcast “The Shrink Next Door,” the true-life story of Dr. Isaac “Ike” Herschkopf, a psychiatrist who abused his relationship with his patients for personal gain, including Martin “Marty” Markowitz. Showalter thought the podcast might inspire some sort of filmed project.

“I was riveted,” Rudd says. “Simultaneously, Will Ferrell had been doing the same thing. That was independent of one another, but when we heard that the other person was interested, we all kind of just jumped on the phone and said, should we try and do this together?”

In the eight-episode Apple TV+ series, Rudd plays Dr. Ike and Ferrell plays Marty.

“I always figured I was going to play Ike,” Rudd says. “It’s strange. Will and I never had a conversation about it. I think we both innately thought, well, you’d be this guy, I’ll be this guy.”

Rudd says he had to shed a lot of the physicality he brings to his “Ant-Man” role to play Dr. Ike in the series, which takes place over 40 years.

“It’s not the type of character I get to play often, if ever. He had a very distinct look and so I get to try and grow my beard and shave it the way he did and have my hair cut the way he did in 1980 and 1990 and then dress a certain way,” he says. “I tried to make myself look like the (real) guy as much as I could, but in doing so, working externally like that you feel different internally.”

Rudd says the way he walked and moved would change when he played Dr. Ike.

“I felt different,” he says. “I started thinking differently and it all kind of manifests itself in the way that I started looking, because they added to my eyebrows and it was kind of fun.”

While viewers may come to see Ike as manipulative and the villain, Rudd says as an actor he doesn’t judge the characters he plays.

“I’m more interested in trying to figure out why people do the things they do rather than the actual things they do,” Rudd says. “While there are certainly things that Ike does that you could say are morally questionable and really out of bounds and brutal, that wasn’t what I focused on or thought of.

“I thought more about his relationship with his father,” Rudd continues. “I thought more about his feelings toward Marty, and his friendship and his love for him, which I think is genuine. He really was, in his mind, helping him, and I think in life in many ways he did (help him). It’s a much more complex and nuanced relationship.”

Rudd says the show’s head writer and showrunner, Georgia Pritchett (“Veep”), early in development offered a take on Ike and Marty’s friendship that resonated with the actor.

“She described it as a love story that was very right before it goes very wrong,” Rudd says, “a codependent and somewhat tragic story of two really good friends.”

Freelance writer Rob Owen: RobOwenTV@gmail.com or on Facebook and Twitter as RobOwenTV.

This story was originally published November 7, 2021 at 5:00 AM.