Paul Rudd recalls his balls hanging out during Rachel Weisz play

Paul Rudd once gave quite the show to theater audiences while starring in a play with Rachel Weisz.

The actor shared memories of the time his balls unwittingly protruded out of his boxer briefs during an off-Broadway production, on the latest episode of the SmartLess podcast.

“I was lying on top of a bed and I was wearing boxer shorts and a T-shirt and all of a sudden — this had never happened before — I heard the audience laughing,” Rudd recalled. “And I’m like, what is going on? I realized it’s because I was lying on the bed and I had my leg up and my balls were hanging out, which is worse than actually, penis — it’s like, just your balls.”

Smartless cohost Will Arnett got a kick out of the fact that this occurred during a production of none other than The Shape of Things, laughing at the apt and ironic title.

“That’s exactly right,” Rudd said. “That was the show.”

“The poster should’ve been your balls hanging out of your shorts,” Arnett quipped.

From a book by Neil LaBute, the 2001 production starred Weisz as an art student who begins a romance with Rudd’s museum guard. LaBute adapted the play into the 2003 romance comedy of the same name, which saw Rudd and Weisz reprise their roles alongside Gretchen Mol and Frederick Weller.

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Rudd is fresh off turns in the series Only Murders in the Building and Alex Scharfman’s horror comedy Death of a Unicorn, playing characters whose balls notably do not accidentally hang out. It was also recently announced that the star is set to reprise his role as Scott Lang/Ant-Man in the Russo brothers’ upcoming Avengers: Doomsday, due in theaters May 2026.

Naturally, the Marvel star was obligated to remain mum about the new project during a recent visit to The Tonight Show.

“There is nothing that I can tell you. They are very secretive. It’s important. You know, it’s a major movie. You can’t be frivolous with this kind of stuff. It’s nothing like military secrets or anything,” Rudd quipped, mocking U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s Signal chat controversy. “This is a major motion picture. It’s not like some coordinated attack. It’s Marvel, Jimmy.”

Listen to Rudd’s SmartLess episode in full above.