Wet Hot American Summer is a goofy cult comedy classic movie stacked with (then) rising stars. Two of the cast members from the flick, Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler, reminisced about the ample amount of hang time fueled by adult beverages BTS. From sunup to sundown (and beyond), many adults of the Camp Firewood crew partied while off the clock, with one distinct exception. And the odd man out of the bunch in question is humorously fitting.
Amy Poehler recently had WHAS peer Paul Rudd join her on her podcast, Good Hang. The two covered a lot of ground, including his second title on the 2025 movie guide A24’s Friendship, along with many Rudd classics. Then there's the 2001 hit they shared. They recalled how most of their time not in character was dictated by beer runs and not prepping for future scenes. After each day was done, many gathered to drink said brews and party loudly into the night, until things shifted a bit with a late arrival. Via the podcast’s YouTube page, Poehler shared:
Do you remember David Hyde Pierce coming out to tell us to–‘Can you be a little quieter?'
It’s wildly fitting that David Hyde Pierce, Fraiser’s persnickety Niles Crane, was the one to question the late-night goings-on. I can only imagine these two, along with Ken Marino, Bradley Cooper and Elizabeth Banks, or anyone who hung out, being taken aback humorously themselves.
The Ant-Man actor piped in, noting it was Pierce’s first evening on set. He mentioned the professional was likely prepping for his first scene the next morning and got interrupted by the partygoers. When the two parties met, no one formally knew the other, and a fellow cast mate broke the awkward tension with the obvious pop culture reference relating to the actor (though it was goofily skewed). The Clueless alum said:
I remember, it was his first night, none of us knew him, and it was like one in the morning and it’s so loud, he’s filming the next morning. He’s been in his room. He’s a professional. I remember he came out and then stopped in the doorway, it was like the needle on the record, and everyone stopped, got quiet. We all looked and Ken Marino just goes ‘Oh great, it’s Frasier.’
This exchange makes me love the movie and the streaming Netflix subscription show that much more! It all screams the exacerbated drama of Camp Firewood all too well. And of course, Ken Marino’s comment is just the cherry on top of the amusing anecdote.
The podcast host jumped in to say the Fraiser actor was more curious than offended by the get-together, but it still left them all giggling like high schoolers after the fact:
He definitely was like, ‘What’s happening here? What’s going on?’And we were like, ‘Oh, none of us are working. We don’t have anything to shoot tomorrow.’
Both Poehler and Rudd agreed he was a wonderful and fun collaborator to have, just a true serious actor opposed to the rest of them during the early ‘00s. I’m a bit obsessed with this brief but hilarious look behind the curtain of one of the best movies set at summer camp. But between these two, and everyone else on the call sheet who’s gone on to kill in Hollywood, it's hard not to be. For me ,at least.
As mentioned, the 56-year-old has a handful of movies coming out this year. In addition to the upcoming A24 movie, he’s already had Death of a Unicorn premiere at SXSW and will have a scheduled horror movie giant come out on December 25th–Anaconda, which is spun as a meta homage to the original of the same name. And of course, Avengers: Doomsday will release the following year.
Who knows if Paul Rudd has as much fun with these casts and crews as he did with Poehler and the gang of Wet Hot American Summer? Or if there was anyone like David Hyde Pierce who wasn’t on the same page as the partygoers? Hopefully, we’ll get those answers in twenty or so years.
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