Ant-Man 3 may have smashed a cinematic world record in one scene

Stephen Porzio

While it was tricky to film, Paul Rudd says it was worth it for the finished project.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is out in cinemas now and some research from JOE suggests it may have broken a world record.

This is for most characters played by one actor in a single film.

According to the Guinness World Records, the current record for the most characters played by a performer in a movie is 45, which was achieved by Johnson George in the film Aaranu Njan.

However, we here at JOE think a scene in the third Ant-Man in which Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) faces hundreds of variants of himself may have beaten this.

We even raised our theory to Rudd and the sequel’s director Peyton Reed when we spoke to them about the movie.

Asked about what it was like filming a scene in which a performer is acting against practically infinite other versions of themselves, Rudd had an interesting answer.

“It sucks,” he said laughing, before adding: “I thought: ‘This will be a fun sequence,’ which it is in the movie.

“But it is the most tedious, tricky, boring, it was boring. At times, it was fun.

“I’ve played a clone before in a show and that’s kind of exciting and fun and it was fun to do a little bit in this scene but as I started to multiply, I had to kind of film every version of me which, just after a while, it’s like: ‘Oh my god, another one’.

“And then I’m also kind of climbing on versions of myself like I’m a bunch of ants really. You can’t fake that just with computer imagery.

“So, we had to really mock up like an armature, like this steel thing. It was four storeys tall and there are guys in blue suits that are covered reaching down and pulling me up and I’m on a harness.

“It sounds kind of fun but after week two, it’s like: ‘Oh god, get me out of this thing. This is punishing.'”

That said, Rudd added that it was all worth it for the final product.

“It was tedious and uncomfortable and endless but I was excited at the idea of what the thing might look like when it was done because I thought it might be kind of crazy and it is,” he explained.

Director Peyton Reed agreed that the scene was a “technical nightmare”.

“It would have been entirely impossible without Paul Rudd,” he told JOE.

“Some actors I think might have just broken under the weight of what we were trying to do because in doing all that stuff technically, you had to keep the spontaneity of Scott and all the other Scotts.

“But Paul’s sense of filming and rhythm are obviously impeccable.

“Him remembering exactly where he’s standing, what the eyeline was, what the reactions were to the one he’s talking to but also the one behind him, it was a Marvel to watch him do that.”

You can check out JOE’s review of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania right here.