Paul Rudd talks honestly about his grueling Marvel/MCU diet

We all know the feeling; we’re sitting in the cinema – or at home – watching a Marvel (or any action movie, really) and at some point the males lead (never the female though… so much for equality, huh?) takes off his top and you look at your gut and handful of popcorn and you just think ‘f@#k’.

Heck, while Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans and Ben Affleck are running around flexing their significant muscles, even the MCU’s Ant-man, Paul Rudd, while not looking like he comes from Asgaard, looked pretty damn good without his top on and you, for the millionth time, think… I could do that, right? Right?

Well, now Rudd, chatting on the Off Menu Podcast, has revealed just how awful it is trying to get – and maintain – that physique and how he pondered if it was really worth it.

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“When I was having to train for the Ant-Man movie, and I was on a very restrictive diet, my reward was sparkling water,” he said.

What?! Not even one donut?!

“That’s how horrible that diet was,” he goes on, “I was like, ‘Alright, I’m gonna have some sparkling water now, I’ve earned it.’

“It was great,” he added, “It wasn’t flavored, I wasn’t gonna go crazy.”

While there’s, of course, a bit of humour in there, there’s no question that this is the sort of discipline it takes for someone with an average build, to become MCU ready and the worrying part is that many out there are striving for that when it’s unhealthy and for many – if not most – unattainable.

However, on the plus side, the star did say that it did make him wake up with “tons of energy”.

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The star’s comments echo those of other actors in the past with Chris Pratt and Tom Holland both expressing the hand work it is to look that way on screen.

“I remember on Endgame,” Rudd goes on, explaining the frustration of working out as hard – or harder – than others and not seeing he results, “Chris Hemsworth would always have these Tupperware containers and he’s eating this gruel of just a mash of stuff. He’s working out, and then you stand next to a guy like that, and I just think, ‘Well, what’s the point of any of this?’ Why am I killing myself when that can exist, and then I look at myself and this exists. I can never achieve that. … That was the good thing that it was Ant-Man, it isn’t Thor. But I tried to work out, and it didn’t work.”

Reading this makes me wonder how much of Rudd’s recent appearance in Only Murders in the Building as an actor who struggled with a diet that denied him anything nice to eat, was based on his real-life experiences with Disney and Marvel.

Never forget that many actors, especially ones in movies like these, are paid massive amounts of money to look like this and have their own chefs and trainers to help them look like superheroes, so never get hung up on trying to attain that look or because you have a bit of a belly or can’t bench press a horse… life isn;t about that, it’s about finding what makes you happy and about enjoying the journey, so by all means, strive to be better in fitness, health and life but never compare yourselves to what Hollywood tells you is the ideal. Be you… we love you here at FTN no matter what.

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Source: Variety