Paul Rudd seems a like nervous kind of guy: then having Jennifer Aniston try and rip your clothes off would disturb anybody. Relax, it was only make-believe. The molestation occurred in ‘The Object of My Affection’, a cute romantic comedy in wich Rudd played George, the gay schoolteacher. Movie-goers may also have caught him as Alicia Silverstone’s step-brother in ‘Clueless’ and as Claire Danes’ suitor (Dave Paris) in ‘William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet’. Theatre-goers can now see him as Jamie Tyrone in Eugene O’Neil’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night’, currently previewing at the Lyric Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue.

Rudd has English parents, but was brought up to Kansas. He is delighted to be in London -if not exactly over-the-moon to be spending his lunch-hour between rehersals fielding questions in a Waterloo trattoria. ‘I’m a terrible subject. I don’t want to talk about myself and I’m no good when I talk about my character. I just yammer on and when I know it’s not going well I start getting ironic, and then it really takes a nosedive. ‘Stuff and nonsense. It is refreshing to meet an actor who has not yet been schooled in the arts of Hollywood non-discloure and even better to discover that Rudd is not just a pretty face.

His look would seem to disqualify him from the part of a balding, boozing, Broadway failure. O’Neill describes Jamie as ‘broad-shouldered’ and ‘deepchested’, ‘shorter and stouter’ than his father. Charles Dance is playing James Tyrone Snr. ‘None of us fits the character description,’ says Rudd. ‘Everyone’s a little younger. Jaime’s 33 and I’m 31. The ability to portray a character is more important than physical similarity. I figure I got the part because I was brillant.’ There’s the irony.

‘Long Day’s Journey Into Night’ is an ugly play about once-beatiful people. The Tyrones are a shabby, wealthy family who live in foggy Connecticut. The father is a retired actor whose drinking ensures he has no head for business. The mother (Jessica Lange) is a dope-fiend. Jamie’s younger brother, Edmund (Paul Nicholls), is a budding poet with a very bad chest. They spend 12 hours digging up the past and trowing it in each other’s faces. The ratting of skeletons in the closet almost drowns out the incessant clinking of ice-cubes in whiskey glasses. One of the skeletons belongs to a dead baby. Some consider it to be O’Neill’ autobiographical masterpiece.

Jaime is not a nice person. His mother, Mary, accuses him of ‘always sneering at someone else, looking for the weakness in everyone.’ ‘You have to like whoever you’re playing even if they’re unlikeable on the page,’ says Rudd. ‘There’s something redeemable in even the most miserable fucker. You have to find out what makes them miserable or bad. That was empathy comes in. Jamie expresses his love through anger and sarcasm. I am not going to play him drunk. I’d love to know how Albert Finney plays drunk, he does it so damn well. One just has to remember that the bourbon makes one freer with one’s emotions. Christ, I’ve started using the royal “one”. I’ve only been in England four weeks. Maybee I’ve been reading too many Tom Stoppard interwiews.’

Rudd is by no means the first American film actor to take to the British stage. Katheleen, Charlton, Darryl and Macaulay have all crossed the pond before him. ‘I’m not doing this because I feel I have to prove anything. It can be pretty fulfilling doing a play, more so than a movie. It’s much harder work for much less money but the parts are so good. There are for more great plays than great movie scripts floating around these days. I’ve been in several long runs back home’ -they include ‘Twelfth Night’ and ‘Bash’- ‘and I knew that if I was ever going to succeed in this business for a while. I don’t have kids and, apart from the play, being in London for five months is something I shall always remember. After all, the Kit-Kats are so much better here.’

Rudd is keen for people to see the play -‘we could talk about my nude scene’ (there isn’t one)- but, as he makes his exit, he comes out with this: ‘I don’t find acting to be the most fulfilling vocation. I act’ cos I can’t be a rock star. I’m a shitty guitarist. ‘ He’s a good actor though. It will be worth sitting through O’Neill melodramatic marathon just to see him in action.

Mark Sanderson