For years, many have wondered: What is former sexiest man alive and eternal jaddy (that’s Jewish zaddy) Paul Rudd‘s secret to looking so young?
Does he keep a Dorian Gray-style portrait in his dressing room (I imagine Paul Rudd has a dressing room, right??)? Was he bitten by a particularly spry radioactive spider? Did he find the secret location of the fountain of youth at the Kansas City Plaza? Was he kidnapped by aliens and released with extraterrestrial anti-aging technology because they loved him in “Clueless”?
Turns out the real answer is even less relatable than that, at least for this Jewish mother of two. According to Rudd, 53, the secret to looking so young in your 50s is… sleep.
In a recent interview with Men’s Health, Rudd, who stars in the “Ant Man” franchise, does attribute his eternal boyish good looks to diet and cardio workouts, but more than anything, it’s catching that shut-eye.
“The most important part of training is sleep,” he said. “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. If you can somehow get eight hours of sleep…”
If? You? Can? Somehow? Get? Eight? Hours? Of? Sleep? Paul Rudd??
OK, to be fair, Paul Rudd’s kids are definitely not keeping him or his wife, Julie Yaeger, awake at night anymore — at least not literally. At 17 and 13, Jack and Darby could be keeping their parents up with the usual worries about teens (Adam Sandler, who is just three years Rudd’s senior but recently had hip replacement surgery, says his teens definitely do). But they’re spared the nightmares, the crying, the pitter-patter of small feet keeping them from sleep.
Still, I feel like the damage that years of lack of sleep have done to my body and face are definitely permanent at this point. Is Paul Rudd’s true secret to his relatively unblemished face… never having gone on middle-of-the-night duty?? Did Rudd not spend years trying to contort himself into a toddler bed just to get his kid to sleep? Inquiring minds want to know.
To be fair, it’s possible that Rudd has had some of the standard-issue external help that particularly unblemished 50-year-olds have had (though you can definitely see some healthy signs of aging on that handsome, handsome face). And while the Men’s Health article does quote other habits that Rudd credits for his youthful looks, I think it’s likely due to all of the above and, well, winning the genetic lottery — even if his British Jewish parents are literal cousins (second cousins, if that helps).
In fact, Rudd told Men’s Health that his grandfather, David Rudnitsky — who changed his name to David Rudd to make it, ahem, less Jewish at a pretty antisemitic time in London — “would tour all over London as ‘The Strongest Man in England.’ ”
“He and my uncles would travel around and wrestle,” Rudd recounted. Yes, all these generations ago, the Rudds were already priming to star in a Marvel movie.
In a video for the magazine, Rudd talks about his diet (it’s Men’s Health magazine, after all), which can be pretty strict when he needs to get swole for a movie. In fact, Rudd revealed that he was particularly stressed abut getting in shape for shirtless scenes in the latest “Ant-Man” installment, but those scenes were cut from the movie (RUDE!!!).
Rudd says that even when he is at his strictest, he does allow himself what those who live in the world of diet culture call “a cheat meal” because “it’s good for your head and it’s delicious.”
There is one daily diet habit that he has picked up from his Jewish dad: drinking a daily cup of coffee, or ten — with no milk or other frills. Rudd, who was raised mostly in New Jersey and Kansas City (go Chiefs!), says his parents kept sugary cereal and soda in the house, and, as a result, he’s not really a fan. In fact, he likes old man cereals, like C.W. Post cereals. He also loves beets. We love that there’s an old Jewish man living inside this sprightly body.
At the end of the day, Rudd has some pretty good diet advice for all of us: “Cut yourself a break, you’re a human being, we’re all human beings, we’ve gotta enjoy our lives, but when you’re not enjoying your life — try salmon.”
Well, I am all about that lox, so maybe there is hope for me yet.
As it is, I truly don’t see a world in which I regularly get a night of eight consecutive hours of sleep in my near future — so unfortunately, Rudd-ian good looks are not in the cards for me. But next time I want to sleep in, I will tell my husband that Paul Rudd told me to. And I urge all the tired moms reading this to do the same.
