Netflix’s Paul Rudd Series Gives Us What We Want: More Paul Rudd

A still of Paul Rudd 'Living With Himself.'

A still of Paul Rudd in ‘Living With Yourself.’ Image by courtesy of Netflix

By Irene Katz Connelly September 17, 2019

It’s said that if you put two Jews in a room, you get three opinions. What happens when you try it with two Paul Rudds?

In “Living With Yourself,” a Netflix original show set to drop October 18, Rudd stars as a capital-S schmuck with bad hair named Miles. (Though frankly, he still looks like a kindly toothpaste model.) Fed up with his dead-end job and bummer life, Miles visits a spa whose mysterious treatments promise to make him “a better you.” When he wakes up, he’s been literally replaced by a doppelganger with better hair, better clothes, and a better personality — played by a well-cast Paul Rudd. (This Rudd has been returned to his full Dorian Gray glory.) Which one will get to live Miles’ life? Comedy, chaos, and charmingly homoerotic Paul-on-Paul action ensues.

The show’s premise recalls Netflix’s more gimmicky series, but the trailer piques our interest with some quiet cultural jabs. Miles’ disgust as his coworkers stagger around the office in virtual reality glasses is a slap in the face to noxious tech bros everywhere, while the sleek-but-seedy spa evokes the booming wellness industry, which rakes in billions by dangling the prospect of self-improvement before customers.

We’re hoping for more veiled snark and explorations of universal (and universally Jewish) themes like identity, insecurity, and endless aspiration. At the very least, we promise there will be no shortage of Paul Rudd.

Irene Connelly is an intern at the Forward. You can contact her at [email protected].

Irene Katz Connelly is a staff writer at the Forward. You can contact her at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at @katz_conn.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO