Ghostbusters: Afterlife star Paul Rudd, fresh off bagging the wholly consequential Sexiest Man Alive distinction, returned to the Late Show on Monday night to—among other things—give his side of a viral Seth Rogen story involving a massage prank.
Back in July, Rogen briefly recounted the moment when his Knocked Up co-star took over for a masseuse at a hotel spa in Vegas without his knowledge. As Rogen explained, what was intended as a quick joke actually extended into a lengthier experience due to him not noticing the masseuse changeover as quickly as Rudd likely assumed would have been the case.
Asked about this by Stephen Colbert on Monday, Rudd confirmed the details.
“That totally happened,” he said. “That’s completely true. I think we were filming a scene from Knocked Up and we had to shoot it in Las Vegas and we were in the gym spa area. We had hours before shooting and I knew he was getting a massage. … I just went in during [it]. It had had just started.”
From there, Rudd explained, he quietly tapped the masseuse out by way of a changeover process he likened to the bag of sand and idol switcheroo in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Rogen, however, didn’t notice the change.
“I thought, oh, let’s keep this going. … Let’s get real, probably less of a comment on my own massaging ability than it is the fact that he was stoned out of his mind,” Rudd, who considers himself a “pretty good masseuse,” told Colbert.
What finally got Rogen to open his eyes, according to Rudd, was a face massage.
“I was doing his shoulders and his arms and he’s not opening his eyes and then I just started massaging his face and then eventually he kind of opened his eyes. … But I mean, I must have massaged him for at least 40 minutes,” Rudd said.
Generously, Rudd then provided the audience with a demonstration of his abilities while giving Colbert a massage and discussing the new Ghostbusters entry.
Rudd, expectedly, was also asked about the aforementioned People distinction of being the alleged Sexiest Man Alive. At around the 4:30 mark in the video above, Colbert pointed out a few examples of sexiness-related news coverage, including the New York Post headline “Sorry, Paul Rudd Is Many Things—But ‘Sexiest Man Alive’ Is Not One of Them.” For Rudd, this may actually go down as an important Post first.
“Well, hey, that might be the first thing I ever read in the New York Post that I agree with, you know?” Rudd joked. “That is not fake news.”
Ghostbusters: Afterlife opens in theaters this Friday. Revisit the latest trailer below.
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