The “Ant-Man” star also indicated he wasn’t particularly eager to land “Clueless”: “I was not on the phone with my agents, like, ‘Did I get it? Did I get it?’”

Paul Rudd explains why his Clueless role wasn’t the one he originally wanted

The "Ant-Man" star also indicated he wasn't particularly eager to land "Clueless": "I was not on the phone with my agents, like, 'Did I get it? Did I get it?'"

By Wesley Stenzel

Wesley Stenzel

Wesley Stenzel is a news writer at **. He began writing for EW in 2022.

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June 3, 2026 8:57 p.m. ET

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Paul Rudd in 'Clueless'. Credit:

- Paul Rudd originally wanted to play a role in *Clueless *other than the one he landed.

- The actor said he considered the other role "the coolest character in the movie."

- Rudd called the character "the most interesting part."

Paul Rudd found his breakout role in *Clueless* — but it wasn't the one he wanted.

The *Ant-Man* star portrayed Josh, the stepbrother-turned-love-interest for Alicia Silverstone's Cher, in the 1995 teen comedy. But in a new interview with *THR*, Rudd explained why he was more attracted to other characters in the ensemble, including Christian, Cher's crush played by Justin Walker who turns out to be gay, and Murray, the boyfriend of Stacey Dash's Dionne played by Donald Faison.

"I remember reading it, like, 'Wait a minute, this is a gay character, who's also the coolest character in the movie? I've never seen this before and it's the most interesting part,'" Rudd recalled thinking upon reading Christian's scenes.

Justin Walker and Alicia Silverstone in 'Clueless'.

Director Amy Heckerling let Rudd read for both Christian and Josh, and ultimately cast him in the latter role. But Rudd wasn't strongly invested in participating in the project. "After the audition was done," the actor said, "I was not on the phone with my agents, like, 'Did I get it? Did I get it?'"

Rudd didn't immediately capitalize on the newfound fame that *Clueless* brought, as he'd already committed to a stage production of *The Last Night of Ballyhoo* in New York City. "My agent was like, 'What the f--k are you doing?'" he recalls. "But I was so excited. I was 25 or 26, and I was about to be on Broadway."

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Adam Scott, who studied at the same acting school as Rudd, told *THR* about how *Clueless* affected the future *I Love You, Man* actor.

"I was at the premiere of *Clueless* out in Malibu with him, and it comes up on this big screen on the beach, and immediately I was like, 'Oh, Paul's going to be a famous person now,'" Scott remembered. "And sure enough, everything changed after that… Suddenly, we could just walk into any bar. It was like, 'Whoa, what the f--- is going on? This is incredible.'"

Rudd in New York on May 19.

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Rudd also recently discussed *Clueless* in his interview with Jake Shane on the *Therapuss* podcast.

"I think there was something kind of exciting during the table read that we had of it, where afterward all of us, the whole cast, kind of sitting around, thought, 'We grew up with those John Hughes movies, and those movies were really important to our generation,'" he recalled. "'Wouldn't it be cool to be in a movie that, for a generation, is a movie that they will be able to quote later on, and was important to them?' But you never really think that will actually happen, and then it kind of happened!"

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