The honor of People’s Sexiest Man Alive is typically accompanied by a number of congratulations and some A+ ribbing. Previously, Brad Bitt and George Clooney shared funny takes on receiving the title in different years, while Will Ferrell is still campaigning for that magazine cover. One also can't forget about the time when Paul Rudd earned the moniker 2021. Now, though, his Death of a Unicorn co-star, Jenna Ortega, is straight-up roasting him about that.
In the 2025 movie release Death of a Unicorn, Jenna Ortega and Paul Rudd play a father and daughter who accidentally kill a unicorn with their car only to be hunted down by its parents. You'd think that Ortega would find the idea of being confronted by mythological creatures was terrifying. However, as she humorously said to eTalk CTV in a video shared to TikTok, finding out about her co-star’s Sexiest Man Alive selection was truly unsettling:
Both are equally terrifying. I will say, though, I actually didn’t even know that Paul was Sexiest Man Alive. He just kept mentioning it on set, so it was really uncomfortable and strange, and he carries it around with him. It’s like a really personal thing to him. He exudes it. You can’t tell, but behind those curtains, he’s got multiple copies for everyone who helped him get ready today.
Needless to say, the usually dry-witted actress has got jokes, and I'm honestly loving it. Her sense of humor is unmatched, and it's too funny that she has no problem taking the piss out of her on-screen dad. Also, while this was surely a joke, the mere thought of the Knocked Up actor handing out multiple copies of his magazine covers to people is just too funny to me.
Still, not everyone gets to be Sexiest Man Alive, so there's a novelty to it. When the Ant-Man actor first received People’s honor, he jokingly talked about taking the mantle from Michael B. Jordan, Paul Rudd said he was gonna “own this” and get “business cards made.” So, if you got the title, flaunt it!
The seemingly ageless star also mentioned in 2021 that he expected his friends to “destroy” him for his new magazine cover. That’s what friends are for, right? Weird Al Yankovic’s response to Rudd’s honor was to share a picture of the Clueless actor dressed up as the parody singer for Halloween. Jennifer Aniston and Jeremy Renner reacted as well by sharing some A+ comments.
As Paul Rudd was present in the eTalk interview, he shared a great quip when responding to his young co-star’s shade. And it's just as self-deprecating as you'd imagine:
I believe I passed out the business card to you, Jenna, on day one.
With that, Jenna Ortega hilariously responded by saying she has experience (via her projects) with interacting with “dark mystical creatures" and that the Ghostbusters star as one of them. (If I worked with an actor whose face looks the same in every project for decades on end, I’d probably feel the same way, too.)
If anything, what this whole interaction seems to signify is just how close Jenna Ortega and Paul Rudd have become. After all, it's said that only true friends can actually chastise each other in such a brutal manner. Jokes or not, I love this shared sense of humor between the stars, and you can check out their work in Death of a Unicorn now.
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