Watch: Paul Rudd spices up his ‘Late Night’ interview with ‘things that never happened’

Paul Rudd is a naturally funny guy, the kind of fella who could crack us up just by reading names out of the phone book (if those are still around). But as Rudd recently explained during his Late Night with Seth Meyers visit, sometimes telling the same old movie stories on whirlwind press tours can get a little stale…even if he’s plugging a guaranteed blockbuster like Marvel’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.

Rudd’s plenty stoked about his third MCU outing as Ant-Man’s tiny titular hero. But as he hilariously confessed to his NBC host, there are only so many times he can share the same moviemaking anecdotes while making the media rounds: “The well gets dry,” he admitted.

That’s where Meyers swept in for the rescue, inviting Rudd to scrap the standard talk show chit-chat and just embellish the truth with some lively made-up tales of his own — all, mind you, based on ridiculous story prompts cued up by Meyers himself.

RELATED: ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ star Evangeline Lilly shows Jimmy Fallon how to properly shrink

Check out Rudd’s entire extended Late Night drop-in, but catch the start of his tall tale session just past the two-minute mark in the first clip below:

“Sharing things that never happened,” as Meyers put it, ends up being at least as funny as any real-life Paul Rudd story. Cued to start riffing on the idea that he’d gotten stuck on a gondola while skiing in Switzerland, Rudd ad libbed his way through an elaborate fib, even down to the strangers he was “stuck” with who had no idea who he was (and couldn’t understand his panic anyway).

“It was the craziest thing! Also it was the first time that I’d ever been there,” Rudd deadpanned. “I’m nervous about heights anyway…The thing is, is when you are in there with all of those people and it stops, they’re from different parts of the world. I was the only one who spoke English…Yeah! — And power goes out, everything is shut down, and there was no way we were gonna get down, and I was really panicked, and I started asking people, ‘What do we do? What do we do?’ — and no one could talk to me.”

Remember, none of this stuff is even remotely real; it’s just Rudd spicing up his own autobiography with funny fantasy. The rest of the made-up account had Rudd admitting that only one of his international companions even recognized him from the movies — a celebrity spotting that of course came with its own problems: “They were ultimately disappointed,” he told Meyers, “because they actually pegged me for being a writer on your show!… Did I tell you about the time I was scuba diving in Cozumel?”

Credit Meyers for tying the whole conversation back to Ant-Man. Guzzling the show's complimentary water from an atypically tiny bottle, Rudd paused — “This is my favorite kind of water, by the way” — just to point out its silly size. The Late Night host quickly seized on that setup to make the obvious Marvel movie connection: “We had a regular size,” Meyers teased. “But then we heard you wanted to tie it into Ant-Man!”

Check out both vids above for some actual Rudd anecdotes, including his take on this year’s Super Bowl and how having an actual teenage daughter informed his performance as Quantumania’s Scott Lang. Rudd stars in the new Phase 5 film opposite MCU newcomer Kathryn Newton, who steps into her role — and into the Quantum Realm — as Scott’s 18-year-old daughter, Cassie. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania arrives in theaters beginning Feb. 17.

Stream more late night laughs with episodes of Late Night with Seth Meyers anytime, day or night, at Peacock.