You might think a fella as dreamy as Paul Rudd would never get nasty comments about his looks, but never count out Hollywood!

Writer, director, producer, and former standup comic Judd Apatow popped by his pal Ted Danson’s Where Everybody Knows Your Name podcast this week to engage in a generalized schmooze about life, and also to do some advanced publicity for his highly anticipated book Comedy Nerd: A Lifelong Obsession in Stories and Pictures.

Discussing the book exposed Apatow’s reverence for many of the legends who came before him, like Don Rickles, Bob Newhart, and his main mentor, Garry Shandling, but over time the conversation turned to his own work, like the about-to-turn-20-year-old movie The 40-Year-Old Virgin and shows like Freaks and Geeks. 

Paul Rudd, Will Ferrell, David Koechner, and Steve Carell in ‘Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy’.

Frank Masi/Dreamworks

Danson asked if The 40-Year-Old Virgin was the first time Apatow worked with Rudd (who would later play opposite Apatow’s wife Leslie Mann in This Is 40), apparently forgetting that Rudd was a key part of a previous Apatow-produced masterpiece.

“We did Anchorman together,” Apatow reminded Danson, adding, “Back then, like, he was doing, you know, probably more serious stuff than comedies, but he really wanted to do comedies.” (Apatow is somewhat correct here — Rudd’s resume from the time included indie dramas like Neil LaBute’s The Shape of Things and Dylan Kidd’s P.S., as well as The Cider House Rules, but also the madcap Wet Hot American Summer and appearances on Strangers With Candy.)

He continued, “I remember him coming in fully dressed in the ’70s clothes for the Anchorman audition [with the] mustache. You know, he definitely was committed to, like, being a comedy star. And I would always say, ‘All I need is for you to gain weight. I just want you to gain weight. I like Chunky Paul. Let’s do Chunky Paul.'”

But not everyone saw it Apatow’s way. He said that “when we were shooting the movie, like, three days in, the studio got really mad. They’re like, ‘What happened to Paul?’ And they’re like, ‘[Can] he do anything about this?’ I’m like, ‘I can’t change his weight in the middle of the movie!’ But, you know, he was doing a De Niro for us.”

Paul Rudd at an event in Austin in 2025.

Andy Wenstrand/SXSW Conference & Festivals via Getty

Take a look at Rudd’s Brian Fantana in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy and tell us if you would change anything about this!

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Luckily, no one listened to the execs and we all got a beefier Paul Rudd.

Apatow and Danson’s conversation touches on a number of other comedy topics — from South Park to Roseanne to writing jokes for the Grammys — so if you, too, are a comedy nerd, it’s definitely worth checking out. Luckily, we’ve embedded the link below.