Interview

Actor Paul Rust was one of those enviably industrious kids in college. When the rule dictated mandatory Friday night attendance at beer-sopped rock ‘n' roll venues, Paul and his buddies at No Shame Theatre were quietly attracting show-goers with dollar-attendance and unpredictable stage experiments. This was the same country-spanning organization where John Leguizamo got his chops and where Artie, the Strongest Man in the World (of The Adventures of Pete & Pete fame) was first conceived. Paul's skits were wholly weird and sometimes very profound. He's similar to Paul Reubens as Pee-Wee Herman in the way he lobs little-kid punch lines that carried subtleties that are sometimes very dark and very adult. Sometimes he can be grotesque. Whatever his mood, Paul never caved to fears that his skits might not be well-received—and some of them weren’t. He'd pee his pants if the mechanics of a skit necessitated it. (PHOTO BY SETH OLENICK)

After college, he and some of his No Shame buddies moved to Los Angeles to be funny together. I recently phoned Paul to catch up. Having already crammed Funny or Die and the Upright Citizens Brigade stage with his hammy brand of yuks, the 28-year-old starred in this year's I Love You, Beth Cooper. The teen comedy flopped, but that didn't stop Quentin Tarantino from offering him a spot in his gang of Nazi-hunting Jewish soldiers in the just-released, non-flop Inglorious Bastards.

PM: So, you're in Inglourious Basterds.

PR: Yeah! My part is so, so small in it, but it was cool to be a part of something that so many people love. Basterds is a really fun time at the movies. Every part of the movie is made to be as entertaining as possible, right from the beginning with the credits and its music and the big bold fonts. I always love a good opening, and Basterds's opening scene ranks as one of the best in movies.

PM: Before being cast you and Quentin hit it off talking about Italian horror movies. That seems like a good entry-point when talking to Tarantino for the first time.

PR: The Italian horror film we talked about most was The Beyond. It's funny because as we were talking about it, I realized that it was Quentin's film company that had distributed the film when I saw it in college. He was responsible for getting me into Italian horror movies, and there I was talking about them with him.

PM: You made quite the impression. Quentin created a role for you after he'd finished the script.

PR: "Created" is probably not the best word. It's not like I was his muse and he went back and created this character for me. I might be mistaken, but I think it was always his intention to cast a few guys to fill out the Basterds, even if the parts weren't written on the page. So when I got cast, it was probably a "the more, the merrier" thing. Like if he has to pick people to spend a couple months in Germany with, I seemed like an okay dude. There were other onscreen Basterds who weren't written in the original script.

PM: Like the Freaks and Geeks guy?

PR: No, Sam [Levine]'s character Gerold Hirshberg was in there from the beginning.

PM: You originally had some lines but they ended up getting cut out. There had been an early scene in the movie where you're scalping a Nazi and you ask him if he'd "like a little bit off the top, sir."

PR: [laughs] Yeah, I had a line or two, but they were cut. That line in particular was one Quentin just threw to me before we started rolling. It was during a big crane shot where the camera goes by all the Basterds one by one as we're scalping, and we each say a line. But I assume that got taken out in the editing room because Quentin figured it wasn't essential.

PM: Was Tarantino's direction and presence what you had anticipated? What did you learn?

PR: The main thing I took away from Quentin's direction is that above all, he was making a movie he would like to go see. A movie he himself would find entertaining as an audience member. And all the while, trusting and believing that other audience members would like to see it, too-which they apparently did, if you look at the opening weekend's box office. Watching him work with that sort of confidence was really inspirational to me. Comedy is no different. Comedy is at its best when you are doing things you find funny and you're not trying to guess what your audience wants. Because at the end of the day, audiences recognize and appreciate specificity, and what's more specific than your own taste?

PM: What, possibly, didn't you like about working with Tarantino? Surely it couldn't have all been hugs and high-fives.

PR: No complaints. For reals.

PM: Everybody is talking about Christoph Waltz's performance as Colonel Hans Landa, the "Jew Hunter." What was it like working with him? It seems like he could really captivate a buffet table.

PR: We didn't have any scenes together, so I only saw him at the table read. Quentin apparently told him to pull it back for the read-through, but even then, he was still staggering.

PM: 2009 has been a big year for you. You also starred in your first feature film, I Love You, Beth Cooper. It's not news to you, however, that it was a big flop.

PR: Let me think before I answer that question. Certainly I was disappointed by how the movie performed at the box office. And of course I would have loved for it to have been a success. At the same time I'm still proud of the performance I gave, and I'm happy that the people who did see the movie got to see that performance. What I'm grateful about is that I could have been in a cynical, mean-spirited teen comedy, but at its heart, the movie is sweet and earnest, and there are far worse things to be than that. As far the film's success goes, I have an interesting story that sort of changed my perspective on things. My girlfriend and I went to the movie Ponyo, which is this animated movie from Japan that didn't get wide distribution in the States. We saw it at a multiplex and the screen for it was tucked far away in the corner because it wasn't as popular as the other movies. My girlfriend said, "I didn't even know there was even a screen back here." And I said, "Oh yeah. It's right down Beth Cooper Way" because it was in fact the same screen where we saw my movie play. She laughed, I laughed. And right then, an usher walked by and said "Oh by the way, I really loved Beth Cooper." So it was ironic to me that I had just made a disparaging joke about the movie's lack of popularity, but then a guy came along and told me he liked it. So maybe that's what I need to take away from the experience–focusing on the fact that some people found it entertaining, and not focusing on how it didn't make money.

PM: What's the stupidest thing somebody's said to you about Iowa?

PR: Well, there's the classic thing where you mention you're from Iowa and then somebody asks if you know so-and-so from Iowa, as if it's a state of ten people where we all know each other. But there's not much prejudice towards Midwesterners in California because most people who live here came from other states. What I did notice was how–and this is probably because California's relatively progressive in their politics–a lot of Californians believe Iowa is just a fly-over red state filled with conservatives. I was personally pleased gay marriage was legalized in Iowa recently because: A) I believe in it and B) it proved that there are progressive folks who live there.

PM: You mean you didn't grow up with Elijah Wood and Ashton Kutcher?

PR: No, no. Nor Brandon Routh.