Paul Rudd says he "felt like a prop" playing Mike Hannigan in Friends

The Ant-Man star – who played the love interest of Phoebe Buffay (Lisa Kudrow) in the hit US sitcom from 2002 to 2004 – opened up about his character when speaking to fellow Avengers actor Chris Evans.

Talking to the Captain America lead, Rudd indicated he felt Mike was never important when compared to the show’s main cast, Matt LeBlanc (Joey), Jennifer Aniston (Rachel Green), Courteney Cox (Monica Geller), Matthew Perry (Chandler Bing), David Schwimmer (Ross Geller) and Kudrow.

"In something like Friends, the show was about them. I was only in it for just a blip,” Rudd said to Evans when the stars assembled on Variety’s Actors on Actors.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JckmsOmk9tU

"I felt, ‘I’m like a prop on this show. It’s not about Mike Hannigan," he added.

“But there’s a very interesting feeling to be a part of something that has that kind of profound impact on pop culture.”

However, Rudd’s experience as part of a bigger cast in the Marvel Cinematic Universe doesn’t sound much easier.

“There’s pressure at every single movie you’re making in the Marvel world. You don’t want to be the weak link. A character like Ant-Man, yeah, very few people knew,” Rudd said.

“They’d say, 'Well, what does Ant-Man do?' And I’d say, 'He can shrink to the size of an ant, but he also retains strength, and he can control ants and talk to ants,' and people would just laugh.”

Despite feeling slightly sidelined in Friends, Rudd was lucky to be a regular star on the show. As the actor previously revealed, he was only supposed to in a couple of instalments.

“I only ever signed on for two episodes but they kept writing more and had more ideas for that character,” he told Metro.

“It was certainly exciting – but it was a strange phenomenon to work with this very well established and highly regarded group of people known all over the world."

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