Paul Rudd

The Clueless star talks about making out with Jessica Alba and Michelle Pfeiffer, defends his feud with Coldplay and spins a hilariously warped fantasy about Al Pacino. By Eric Spitznagel

 
THE 21ST QUESTION:
You have a son named Jack. Pardon us for saying so, but that's so un-Hollywood of you. Couldn't you have considered giving him a wackier name, like Toaster?

RUDD:
Toaster would've been great! Early on, long before I ever thought seriously about being a parent, I wanted to give my kid a really cool name. But then when it becomes a reality, I thought, I don't want to do that to my child. There were a few weird, obscure names that I liked. I thought about Satchel early on, but it seemed too Woody Allen-y. I also considered calling him Leroy. There's something about a white Jewish kid with the name "Leroy Rudd." One of the major things that I kept coming back to during the process was a George Carlin routine. This is not a joke. He talked about how so many kids these days have soft names like Tyler, Jordan, Flynn, Tucker and Kyle. In his day, boys had real names like Eddie, Vinnie and Tony. And then he said, "Soft names make soft people. I'll bet you 10 times out of 10, Eddie, Vinnie and Tony are beating the shit out of Jordan, Kyle and Tucker." And he's right. That kept resonating with me. So I named my son Jack Rudd. That's a man's name. Jack Rudd, Private Dick.

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Photography by Nigel Parry