Paul Rudd, Nick Jonas Star in Carney's 'Power Ballad'
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- Paul Rudd stars in John Carney's 'Power Ballad' as Rick Power, a Kansas City native and former rocker living in Ireland who plays wedding gigs, opposite Nick Jonas as pop star Danny Wilson who steals Rick's original song for a worldwide hit without credit.
- The film's premise resonates with Rudd, who compared it to an 'Antiques Roadshow' segment about a White House photographer who shot the iconic LBJ swearing-in photo on Air Force One but was lost 'to history' when the image went out on the AP wire.
- Rudd sang covers of 'Mr. Blue Sky' and a Thin Lizzy song for the film; a recorded take of 'Lady in Red' featuring a drunk-wedding-guest bit was cut for pacing.
- A final resolution scene was shot later because American audiences 'want to know, "Wait, no, we need to see what's going to happen"' — a directorial concession Rudd said was made to give viewers closure.
- Rudd told IndieWire he had no idea his 'Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers' character Tommy Doyle killed Michael Myers, ending that timeline before the 'Halloween H2O' reboot, joking it could have saved 'a lot of bodybags.'
- Rudd's 'Stay curious' catchphrase from last year's 'Friendship' has not caught on publicly, he said, and he is also set to appear in this fall's 'Avengers: Doomsday,' though he added there's 'not much he can say about it.'
Why it matters: 'Power Ballad' stakes its emotional core on the very human feeling of having your work stolen and losing credit, a premise Rudd anchors by connecting it to a real photographer who took the iconic LBJ swearing-in photo but was forgotten by history. The added ending scene shows Carney conceding to American audiences' appetite for narrative resolution, a small directorial pivot in a film about accepting you may never get closure.
