Anyone familiar with Paul Rudd knows he’s definitely a vampire who doesn’t experience cell death. In other words, he doesn’t age. The dude has looked exactly the same for his entire century-long career (OK, that time frame *might* be an exaggeration). He’s spent that career playing hapless yet dreamy bros in rom-coms. But now, 51-year-old Rudd has teamed up with New York governor Andrew Cuomo to use his supernatural powers for good. Last week, Rudd dressed up as a 26-year-old for a PSA aimed toward getting millennials to wear masks.
Holding a skateboard and donning an askew baseball cap and a pair of Beats by Dre headphones around his neck, Rudd introduces himself as a “certified young person.” He goes on to say that “Cuoms” (whose headshot fades dramatically against the backdrop of a purple-tinged NYC cityscape) asked him to talk to his fellow millennials about stopping the spread of Covid-19.
Constantly referring to “us millennials,” and dropping in lots of awkward slang (“yas queens like ourselves want to go to bars, we want to drink”), Rudd emphasizes the importance of slapping on those masks. At one point he takes a phone call from Billie Eilish, telling her, “I want to stan you.” But perhaps the best and most horrifying image is of Rudd doing a Tik-Tok dance challenge while begging millennials to stop adding to the hundreds of thousands of people dying from a preventable disease.
As is typical, this seemingly positive act has generated the ire of Twitter users—many calling out Cuomo for not wearing a mask while walking his dog in NYC. Incidentally, non-millennials seem to love the message. Just look at this glowing endorsement by a woman who looks closer to Rudd’s actual age:
In terms of performance, Paul Rudd is hapless as ever as a millennial. But hopefully, his message will prove effective.
