Paul Rudd Quit Bringing His Phone to Sets: 'Facilitating Our Own — SkimNews
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- Paul Rudd told Variety at the New York Film Festival premiere of "A Statement" that he stopped bringing his phone to sets, calling smartphones "horrible things" and saying "I'm addicted to it like everybody else. They're facilitating our own destruction."
- Tom McCarthy enforced a "very strict no phones policy" on the set of "A Statement," which Rudd said made filming feel like a play and forced castmates to actually talk to each other.
- "A Statement" is set at a 1980 Florida beachside resort where 20 experts spend a weekend debating how to draft a congressional statement about carbon dioxide emissions, structured analogously to "12 Angry Men."
- Amy Ryan, who delivers the film's sobering climax moment, compared the phone ban to quitting sugar: "In three days, it's out of your system. You don't miss it!" and encouraged other filmmakers to follow McCarthy's lead.
- The ensemble cast — including Paul Giamatti, Tatiana Maslany, and John Turturro — reportedly bonded more deeply without phones, with Ryan saying the absence of notifications and doomscrolling "definitely made the work much more rich."
Why it matters: A-list actors are publicly endorsing phone bans as a creative necessity, not just a wellness trend — Rudd and Ryan both framed it as a return to genuine human connection on set. If a respected director like Oscar-winner McCarthy can enforce it on a sprawling ensemble production, it gives other filmmakers cover to try the policy themselves.
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