Paul Rudd: ‘In private, I’m dealing with all the scars and traumas of real life’
The ‘Ant-Man’ star talks to Alexandra Pollard about his new Netflix series ‘Living With Yourself’, being buried alive and how these days ‘everyone’s p***ed off about something’
‘I’ve never done an interview where my guard is down’
(
Rex
)
It’s a tough time for comedy,” says Paul Rudd. The star of Clueless, Anchorman and Knocked Up is blaming social media for creating a hostile climate. “You hear some comics that used to play colleges all the time. They don’t want to do that any more, because there’s no room for any kind of daring comedy. Everybody’s gonna be p***ed off about something. And that’s… a drag.”
Surely there’s still plenty of room for daring comedy? “ABSOLUTELY there is!” he yelps. “And also, there’s more of a conversation about how something might be interpreted. Being aware of how a person might feel marginalised because of their sex, or because of their sexual preference, or because of their sexual identity… there are conversations happening now that have never happened, and that is incredible. It’s a great, great thing. It’s an awesome thing.”
I’m a little confused. Did two entirely different people just answer the same question? It seems quite an innovative way to sit on the fence. But perhaps it is an after-effect of filming the show we’re here to discuss. In Living With Yourself, the new Netflix comedy drama about a man, Miles, whose illegal “spa” treatment goes badly wrong, Rudd plays two characters. One is dejected, lethargic, lugubrious. The kind of person who feels jealous of the fly he’s just swatted. The other is upbeat, optimistic, effusive. The kind of person who hangs his head out of the car window just to revel in being alive. The thing is, they’re the same man – cloned.
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The show is dark – the very first scene involves Rudd bursting naked and hyperventilating from a shallow grave. “Filming that was awful,” he says. “It was the weirdest thing I’ve ever had to film. I’m not so claustrophobic really, but something within us knows that it’s not the right thing to be buried alive. There was a tube that went underground so I could breathe.” He filmed the scene in a public park. Did people walk past? “Yeah! But that’s the great thing about New York. Somebody getting out of the ground in a diaper is the third weirdest thing they’ve seen that day.”
Unsurprisingly, the show’s also very funny. It’s the perfect role for Rudd, who is an eminent everyman – or, at least, the type of star who convinces you he’s an everyman while exuding charisma and an egoless confidence. You’re never quite sure whether you’re laughing with his characters, or at them. Or if maybe the joke’s on you.
Living With Yourself – trailer
The Rudd I’m speaking to today in a London hotel most closely resembles Miles 2.0: self-assured, high energy and possessed of a puppyish enthusiasm that often causes him to shout mid-sentence. Extinction Rebellion protestors were blocking the road on his way here, “so I just jumped out the car and ran”, he says chirpily. Rudd didn’t mind being delayed by climate activists – “It’s really important, you know?” – and is resolutely unruffled by the last-minute dash, dressed in an ocean blue suit and starched white shirt, with coiffed hair and the fresh face of someone about a decade younger.
It’s become a bit of a thing, in fact, how young the 50-year-old looks – almost as young now as when he broke out 24 years ago, as Cher Horowitz’s step-brother / love interest Josh in the 1995 romantic comedy Clueless. When he first played Marvel superhero Ant-Man – a role, most recently reprised in this year’s Avengers: Endgame, which brought him to a new level of fame – he was already 46. There are memes, viral tweets and BuzzFeed quizzes, all based around his Dorian Gray-ish looks. But Rudd, it seems, is a little embarrassed about the whole thing. When he was asked about it in a recent New York Times interview, he bristled: “I’m aware… There’s nothing really to say about it.” Today, I’m politely asked not to bring it up.
‘Ant-Man’ was a turning point in Rudd’s already impressive career (Marvel/Disney)
Everything else is on the table, though. How does he feel about the increasingly blurred line between film and TV? Some people think it’s damaging the sanctity of cinema. Others think that Marvel films are doing that. “Wow,” says Rudd. It’s true. Martin Scorsese said it the other day. “At the end of the day, I think any actor just wants to work on something they like. The material’s good, the writing’s good, the character’s interesting. People watch their movies on TV now. People watch their movies on phones now. So this was just, ‘This is an interesting character. The themes are really unique. I like the material.’ I’m not thinking of it anywhere beyond that.”
Rudd empathises with the original, more jaded Miles more than you might expect. “It’s relatable why he’s going to a ‘spa’,” he says. “His marriage is not in the best place, he’s not doing so well at work, everything in his life has been better, and he’s stuck. I think that’s something we all experience at different points in our life. We go to therapy, we want to go to the gym, we want to do everything we can to try and improve our mood, try and improve our appearance, try and improve everything.”
Rudd has appeared in many comedy classics such as ‘Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues’ (Paramount)
Having a clone doesn’t really improve things, though. And there are moral repercussions to Miles’s behaviour. Not least when it comes to his wife Kate (Aisling Bea), who calls his actions – and his subsequent decision to hide them from her – a “violation”. “Did I take on the ethical implications?” he says when I ask about that line. “I didn’t… I approach it as what the characters would think, and not so much what me, the human being, would think. Like, how do I feel about cloning in general? That was not my concern. I’m not the guy to ask!”
Still, as someone who has a public self and a private one, Rudd must have identified with a character whose personhood is split in two. There’s a 10-second pause. “I suppose there really is a parallel,” he says, slowly. “That’s… Yeah, that’s true. The private self is who I am. But the public persona is also part of who I am. But they don’t have the same kind of battle scars. It’s certainly different in my real life, because the things that I deal with are life things. Real life things.”
Hidden gems: The best Netflix originals you might have missed
Show all 20
Hidden gems: The best Netflix originals you might have missed
1/20 Money Heist (TV series, one season, 2017–)
Known as La Casa de Papel (House of Paper) in its native Spanish, Money Heist is Netflix’s most streamed non-English language show. The bank heist is a tired dramatic trope these days, but don’t let that, or the show’s bland English-language title, put you off – creator Álex Pina has made something special. The heist here, led by a mysterious man known only as The Professor, involves breaking into the Royal Mint of Spain and printing off €2.4 billion. There are even more twists in the show’s 15 episodes than there are hostages.
Netflix
2/20 American Vandal (TV series, two seasons, 2017–2018)
Part satire of true crime documentaries such as Making a Murderer, part carefully observed portrayal of teenage life, American Vandal was criminally underappreciated during its two season run. It’s been cancelled now, but that doesn’t mean you can’t catch up with it, and then write Netflix a strongly worded email.
Netflix
3/20 One Day at a Time (TV series, two seasons, 2017–)
In stark contrast to the off-beat, low-key comedy that currently rules TV – the kind that provokes a wry smirk rather than a hearty laugh – One Day at a Time is a big, bright sitcom filmed in front of an interminably enthusiastic studio audience. You wouldn’t have thought that the story of a Cuban-American army veteran / nurse / single mother – who suffers from PTSD and depression – would fit into this format, but it does so beautifully, tackling issues of sexuality, racism and sexism in the process.
Netflix
4/20 Private Life (Film, 2018)
Based on writer / director Tamara Jenkins’s own fertility struggles, Private Life stars Kathryn Hahn and Paul Giamatti (both giving brilliant performances) as a spiky, loving middle-aged couple desperate to have a baby. They even rope their enthusiastic but irresponsible niece Sadie (Kayli Carter) into the mix, much to the horror of Sadie’s mother (Molly Shannon, turning a potentially repellent character into one worthy of empathy). It’s subtle, restrained and beautifully realised.
Netflix
5/20 Big Mouth (TV series, two seasons, 2017–)
Crude, rude, and rife with surprise emissions and bodily functions, animated sitcom Big Mouth is also a sensitive, nuanced deep dive into the various horrors of teenagehood. When 12-year-old Andrew Glouberman (John Mulaney) is visited by the hormone monster (Nick Kroll, who voices many of the show’s best characters), he finds his life irreversibly – and seemingly disastrously – changed. Unlike many other puberty-centred comedies, Big Mouth makes as much time for its confused female protagonists as its male ones; Maya Rudolph is a delight as the female hormone monster, and look out for Kristen Wiig’s wonderful turn as a talking vagina.
Netflix
6/20 Easy (TV series, two seasons, 2016–)
Joe Swanberg’s style of defiantly undramatic mumblecore isn’t for everyone, but if you enjoyed his earlier films, Drinking Buddies and Happy Christmas, you’ll find plenty to admire in this anthology comedy-drama series. Big-name stars such as Orlando Bloom and Aubrey Plaza crop up, but Jane Adams – who you might remember from Todd Solondz’s chronically depressing 1998 film Happiness – is the show’s heart, and Marc Maron is its jaded soul.
Netflix
7/20 Love (TV series, three seasons, 2016–2018)
Community’s Gillian Jacobs is brilliant as the prickly, magnetic recovering addict Mickey, who forms an unlikely – and arguably deeply unwise – relationship with her nerdy neighbour Gus (Paul Rust). Despite Gus’s pathological need to be the nice guy, we’re never quite sure who or what we’re rooting for – which is what makes Love such complex, compelling viewing.
In 2016, comedian Patton Oswalt’s wife, the true crime writer Michelle McNamara, died suddenly in her sleep. That subject matter doesn’t exactly scream “stand-up special”, but out of his devastating loss, Oswalt managed to craft something funny and profound. Over the course of an hour, he processes his grief onstage, managing to find humour in the struggle to raise his grieving six-year-old daughter alone.
Netflix
9/20 Santa Clarita Diet (TV series, two seasons, 2017–)
Granted, this horror-comedy – which stars Drew Barrymore as a neurotic real estate agent who suddenly develops a taste for human flesh – is really silly, and really, really disgusting. But it’s also strangely charming, and funny. Timothy Olyphant is excellent as Sheila’s frazzled husband Joel, and the pair’s idiosyncratic but respectful relationship with their smart teenage daughter Abby (Liv Hewson) isn’t quite like anything else on TV right now.
Netflix
10/20 Dark Tourist (TV series, one season, 2018–)
New Zealand journalist David Farrier is an unlikely TV presenter in the same way that Louis Theroux is – in just about every scenario in which he finds himself, he’s a little bit awkward. But as with Theroux, Farrier’s weakness is actually his strength, allowing him to endear himself to the many unusual people he meets on his journey through the world’s most questionable tourist destinations. Farrier’s stops include the site of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the road where JFK was assassinated, and the Milwaukee suburbs where serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer murdered his victims.
Netflix
11/20 Sacred Games (TV series, one season, 2018–)
Based on Vikram Chandra’s epic 2006 novel, Netflix’s first Indian original series is a slowly unfolding gem. The first season of Sacred Games – which follows a troubled police officer (Saif Ali Khan) who has 25 days to save his city thanks to a tip-off from a presumed dead gangster – only covered one quarter of Chandra’s 1,000-page novel. As the show itself declared when it announced the forthcoming second season, “the worst is yet to come”.
Netflix
12/20 Dumplin’ (Film, 2018)
When the trailer for Dumplin’ first landed, it seemed all the ingredients were in place for a film that was at worst tone-deaf, and at best vaguely patronising. Thank heavens, then, that the trailer did Dumplin’ such a disservice. Starring Danielle Macdonald (who broke out in the excellent 2017 film Patti Cake$) as Willowdean, a self-described “fat girl” who enters a local pageant to annoy her former beauty queen mother (Jennifer Aniston), Dumplin’ is as funny, warm and sensitive as its protagonist – and with a killer Dolly Parton-laden soundtrack to boot.
Netflix
13/20 Dark (TV series, one season, 2017–)
This sci-fi thriller – which features disappearing children, a mysterious local power plant, and scenes set in the Eighties – has, for obvious reasons, drawn comparisons to Stranger Things. But Dark is even more beguiling and (true to its name) less family-friendly than Stranger Things.
Netflix
14/20 The Death and Life of Marsha P Johnson (Film, 2017)
Though it’s been somewhat tarnished by claims that director David France appropriated the work and research of trans film-maker Reina Gossett, this documentary is nonetheless a loving, respectful tribute to gay rights activist Marsha P Johnson. One of the key figures in the Stonewall uprising (though her involvement was almost entirely eradicated in 2015’s critically hated Stonewall), Johnson modelled for Andy Warhol, performed onstage with drag group Hot Peaches, helped found the Gay Liberation Front, and then died under suspicious circumstances in 1992.
Netflix
15/20 On My Block (TV series, one season, 2018–)
This coming-of-age series might not have found as many eyeballs as it deserved last year, but those it did find were glued to the screen. In fact, it was the most-binged show of 2018 – meaning that it had the highest watch-time-per-viewing session of any Netflix original. Created by Awkward’s Lauren Iungerich, On My Block follows a group of Los Angeles teens as they navigate both the drama of high school and the danger of inner-city life.
John O Flexor/Netflix
16/20 Set It Up (Film, 2018)
Two beleaguered assistants (Zoey Deutch and Glen Powell) conspire to get their over-demanding bosses (Taye Diggs and Lucy Liu) together in order to get their lives back in this winning romantic comedy. Set It Up is responsible not only for coining the term “over-dicking” (it’s much more innocent than it sounds), but for rejuvenating a tired genre.
Netflix
17/20 Cargo (Film, 2017)
Martin Freeman stars as the father struggling to protect his young daughter from a zombie epidemic spreading across Australia. So far, so overdone. But this drama thriller, directed by Ben Howling and Yolanda Ramke and based on their 2013 short of the same name, throws a handful of unpredictable spanners in the works.
Netflix
18/20 3% (TV series, two season, 2016–)
Like a cross between The Hunger Games and CW series The 100, this Brazilian dystopian thriller, set in an unspecified future, revolves largely around an impoverished community known as the Inland. Every year, each 20-year-old takes part in a series of tests; the highest scoring 3% will be chosen to live in paradise in the Offshore. It is an intriguing and addictive commentary on class and privilege.
Netflix
19/20 Godless (TV series, one season, 2017–)
With shades of John Ford's The Searchers, this languorous western was critically acclaimed but swiftly forgotten after it landed on Netflix in 2016. Set in 1884, it's about Frank Griffin (Jeff Daniels) and his notoriously ruthless gang of outlaws’ pursuit of their injured former ally Roy Goode (Jack O’Connell), who is hiding out in a small town populated solely by women after a mining accident killed off all its men. A gun-toting Michelle Dockery, clearly relishing the change of scenery after years of Downton Abbey, and a taciturn Jack O’Connell, are on brilliant form.
Netflix
20/20 Atypical (TV series, two seasons, 2017–)
This coming-of-age series about a teenage boy with autism was sweet and well-intentioned from the start, but its first season was criticised for a handful of inaccuracies, and for its lack of autistic actors. Rather than drowning in a sea of defensiveness – as too many shows tend to do – it listened, and brought in autistic actors and writers for its excellent second season.
Netflix
1/20 Money Heist (TV series, one season, 2017–)
Known as La Casa de Papel (House of Paper) in its native Spanish, Money Heist is Netflix’s most streamed non-English language show. The bank heist is a tired dramatic trope these days, but don’t let that, or the show’s bland English-language title, put you off – creator Álex Pina has made something special. The heist here, led by a mysterious man known only as The Professor, involves breaking into the Royal Mint of Spain and printing off €2.4 billion. There are even more twists in the show’s 15 episodes than there are hostages.
Netflix
2/20 American Vandal (TV series, two seasons, 2017–2018)
Part satire of true crime documentaries such as Making a Murderer, part carefully observed portrayal of teenage life, American Vandal was criminally underappreciated during its two season run. It’s been cancelled now, but that doesn’t mean you can’t catch up with it, and then write Netflix a strongly worded email.
Netflix
3/20 One Day at a Time (TV series, two seasons, 2017–)
In stark contrast to the off-beat, low-key comedy that currently rules TV – the kind that provokes a wry smirk rather than a hearty laugh – One Day at a Time is a big, bright sitcom filmed in front of an interminably enthusiastic studio audience. You wouldn’t have thought that the story of a Cuban-American army veteran / nurse / single mother – who suffers from PTSD and depression – would fit into this format, but it does so beautifully, tackling issues of sexuality, racism and sexism in the process.
Netflix
4/20 Private Life (Film, 2018)
Based on writer / director Tamara Jenkins’s own fertility struggles, Private Life stars Kathryn Hahn and Paul Giamatti (both giving brilliant performances) as a spiky, loving middle-aged couple desperate to have a baby. They even rope their enthusiastic but irresponsible niece Sadie (Kayli Carter) into the mix, much to the horror of Sadie’s mother (Molly Shannon, turning a potentially repellent character into one worthy of empathy). It’s subtle, restrained and beautifully realised.
Netflix
5/20 Big Mouth (TV series, two seasons, 2017–)
Crude, rude, and rife with surprise emissions and bodily functions, animated sitcom Big Mouth is also a sensitive, nuanced deep dive into the various horrors of teenagehood. When 12-year-old Andrew Glouberman (John Mulaney) is visited by the hormone monster (Nick Kroll, who voices many of the show’s best characters), he finds his life irreversibly – and seemingly disastrously – changed. Unlike many other puberty-centred comedies, Big Mouth makes as much time for its confused female protagonists as its male ones; Maya Rudolph is a delight as the female hormone monster, and look out for Kristen Wiig’s wonderful turn as a talking vagina.
Netflix
6/20 Easy (TV series, two seasons, 2016–)
Joe Swanberg’s style of defiantly undramatic mumblecore isn’t for everyone, but if you enjoyed his earlier films, Drinking Buddies and Happy Christmas, you’ll find plenty to admire in this anthology comedy-drama series. Big-name stars such as Orlando Bloom and Aubrey Plaza crop up, but Jane Adams – who you might remember from Todd Solondz’s chronically depressing 1998 film Happiness – is the show’s heart, and Marc Maron is its jaded soul.
Netflix
7/20 Love (TV series, three seasons, 2016–2018)
Community’s Gillian Jacobs is brilliant as the prickly, magnetic recovering addict Mickey, who forms an unlikely – and arguably deeply unwise – relationship with her nerdy neighbour Gus (Paul Rust). Despite Gus’s pathological need to be the nice guy, we’re never quite sure who or what we’re rooting for – which is what makes Love such complex, compelling viewing.
In 2016, comedian Patton Oswalt’s wife, the true crime writer Michelle McNamara, died suddenly in her sleep. That subject matter doesn’t exactly scream “stand-up special”, but out of his devastating loss, Oswalt managed to craft something funny and profound. Over the course of an hour, he processes his grief onstage, managing to find humour in the struggle to raise his grieving six-year-old daughter alone.
Netflix
9/20 Santa Clarita Diet (TV series, two seasons, 2017–)
Granted, this horror-comedy – which stars Drew Barrymore as a neurotic real estate agent who suddenly develops a taste for human flesh – is really silly, and really, really disgusting. But it’s also strangely charming, and funny. Timothy Olyphant is excellent as Sheila’s frazzled husband Joel, and the pair’s idiosyncratic but respectful relationship with their smart teenage daughter Abby (Liv Hewson) isn’t quite like anything else on TV right now.
Netflix
10/20 Dark Tourist (TV series, one season, 2018–)
New Zealand journalist David Farrier is an unlikely TV presenter in the same way that Louis Theroux is – in just about every scenario in which he finds himself, he’s a little bit awkward. But as with Theroux, Farrier’s weakness is actually his strength, allowing him to endear himself to the many unusual people he meets on his journey through the world’s most questionable tourist destinations. Farrier’s stops include the site of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the road where JFK was assassinated, and the Milwaukee suburbs where serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer murdered his victims.
Netflix
11/20 Sacred Games (TV series, one season, 2018–)
Based on Vikram Chandra’s epic 2006 novel, Netflix’s first Indian original series is a slowly unfolding gem. The first season of Sacred Games – which follows a troubled police officer (Saif Ali Khan) who has 25 days to save his city thanks to a tip-off from a presumed dead gangster – only covered one quarter of Chandra’s 1,000-page novel. As the show itself declared when it announced the forthcoming second season, “the worst is yet to come”.
Netflix
12/20 Dumplin’ (Film, 2018)
When the trailer for Dumplin’ first landed, it seemed all the ingredients were in place for a film that was at worst tone-deaf, and at best vaguely patronising. Thank heavens, then, that the trailer did Dumplin’ such a disservice. Starring Danielle Macdonald (who broke out in the excellent 2017 film Patti Cake$) as Willowdean, a self-described “fat girl” who enters a local pageant to annoy her former beauty queen mother (Jennifer Aniston), Dumplin’ is as funny, warm and sensitive as its protagonist – and with a killer Dolly Parton-laden soundtrack to boot.
Netflix
13/20 Dark (TV series, one season, 2017–)
This sci-fi thriller – which features disappearing children, a mysterious local power plant, and scenes set in the Eighties – has, for obvious reasons, drawn comparisons to Stranger Things. But Dark is even more beguiling and (true to its name) less family-friendly than Stranger Things.
Netflix
14/20 The Death and Life of Marsha P Johnson (Film, 2017)
Though it’s been somewhat tarnished by claims that director David France appropriated the work and research of trans film-maker Reina Gossett, this documentary is nonetheless a loving, respectful tribute to gay rights activist Marsha P Johnson. One of the key figures in the Stonewall uprising (though her involvement was almost entirely eradicated in 2015’s critically hated Stonewall), Johnson modelled for Andy Warhol, performed onstage with drag group Hot Peaches, helped found the Gay Liberation Front, and then died under suspicious circumstances in 1992.
Netflix
15/20 On My Block (TV series, one season, 2018–)
This coming-of-age series might not have found as many eyeballs as it deserved last year, but those it did find were glued to the screen. In fact, it was the most-binged show of 2018 – meaning that it had the highest watch-time-per-viewing session of any Netflix original. Created by Awkward’s Lauren Iungerich, On My Block follows a group of Los Angeles teens as they navigate both the drama of high school and the danger of inner-city life.
John O Flexor/Netflix
16/20 Set It Up (Film, 2018)
Two beleaguered assistants (Zoey Deutch and Glen Powell) conspire to get their over-demanding bosses (Taye Diggs and Lucy Liu) together in order to get their lives back in this winning romantic comedy. Set It Up is responsible not only for coining the term “over-dicking” (it’s much more innocent than it sounds), but for rejuvenating a tired genre.
Netflix
17/20 Cargo (Film, 2017)
Martin Freeman stars as the father struggling to protect his young daughter from a zombie epidemic spreading across Australia. So far, so overdone. But this drama thriller, directed by Ben Howling and Yolanda Ramke and based on their 2013 short of the same name, throws a handful of unpredictable spanners in the works.
Netflix
18/20 3% (TV series, two season, 2016–)
Like a cross between The Hunger Games and CW series The 100, this Brazilian dystopian thriller, set in an unspecified future, revolves largely around an impoverished community known as the Inland. Every year, each 20-year-old takes part in a series of tests; the highest scoring 3% will be chosen to live in paradise in the Offshore. It is an intriguing and addictive commentary on class and privilege.
Netflix
19/20 Godless (TV series, one season, 2017–)
With shades of John Ford's The Searchers, this languorous western was critically acclaimed but swiftly forgotten after it landed on Netflix in 2016. Set in 1884, it's about Frank Griffin (Jeff Daniels) and his notoriously ruthless gang of outlaws’ pursuit of their injured former ally Roy Goode (Jack O’Connell), who is hiding out in a small town populated solely by women after a mining accident killed off all its men. A gun-toting Michelle Dockery, clearly relishing the change of scenery after years of Downton Abbey, and a taciturn Jack O’Connell, are on brilliant form.
Netflix
20/20 Atypical (TV series, two seasons, 2017–)
This coming-of-age series about a teenage boy with autism was sweet and well-intentioned from the start, but its first season was criticised for a handful of inaccuracies, and for its lack of autistic actors. Rather than drowning in a sea of defensiveness – as too many shows tend to do – it listened, and brought in autistic actors and writers for its excellent second season.
Netflix
Rudd, who was born in New Jersey to British parents, has been married to publicist and screenwriter Julie Yaeger, with whom he has two children, since 2003. But even as his star has risen, Rudd has managed to largely avoid tabloids and gossip columns – perhaps thanks to his un-Hollywood, unchanging relationship. “In my private life,” he continues, “I’m dealing with all the scars and traumas and real stuff from living my real life. When I’m in public, I’m giving a very filtered, smooth version of it.”
But it’s not fake? “I mean, it might be,” he laughs. “There is just a natural, inauthentic version that’s gonna have to happen. I’ve never done an interview where my guard is down. It’s just unavoidable. I can answer a question truthfully, but it’s always with a lens that it’s either gonna get read, or it’s gonna get seen, and it just changes by nature. I’m never totally relaxed. And while I’m not trying to manipulate what you get, I guess maybe on some level, it is just a manipulation, and it’s inauthentic.”
There’s one thing, though, that Rudd’s private and public selves have in common: humour. “I have always felt like jokes can help a situation,” he says. “It’s important that we all just remember to laugh. Because life’s hard.”
Live With Yourself is streaming on Netflix from Friday
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Independent Premium Comments can be posted by members of our membership scheme, Independent Premium. It allows our most engaged readers to debate the big issues, share their own experiences, discuss real-world solutions, and more. Our journalists will try to respond by joining the threads when they can to create a true meeting of independent Premium. The most insightful comments on all subjects will be published daily in dedicated articles. You can also choose to be emailed when someone replies to your comment.
The existing Open Comments threads will continue to exist for those who do not subscribe to Independent Premium. Due to the sheer scale of this comment community, we are not able to give each post the same level of attention, but we have preserved this area in the interests of open debate. Please continue to respect all commenters and create constructive debates.