The sexiest man alive is Rudd, Paul Rudd

Actor Paul Rudd's most recent work is in the 'Avengers' films and series, as Ant-Man/Scott.

Actor Paul Rudd, famous for his anti-ageing genes and for winning Phoebe’s heart in Friends. Not too tall at 5’8" and not too young at 52, but always smiling an amiable smile. So sweet he even owns a candy store in New York. Which he took over when the previous owner, his friend, died. Yes, that Paul. Whom you’d ask for a selfie if you saw him across a street because he doesn’t look like he would mind. But whom you perhaps do not picture in the nude in your own bed. Well, all that changes now that People magazine has identified him as the Sexiest Man Alive.

A quick Google search of his images shows up only one bare-chested picture. Of course, sexiness is not always defined by abs or rippling biceps. But this everyday wholesome vibe that Paul somehow manages to convey to convince us of his very ordinary ordinariness must now be subjected to urgent adjustment on our part in accordance with the latest polls on handsomeness and hotness.

It is like we have to look at a sibling with new eyes. Paul himself said in an interview immediately after being conferred the title, ‘I do have an awareness enough to know that when people hear that I'd be picked for this, they would say, What?’ And we said, ‘What?’

According to him, wife Julie Yaeger was stupefied. There was some giggling, he confesses, but also some wifely tact: ‘Oh, they got it right.’ Paul says he is going to be on a lot more yachts from now on. ‘I’ll probably try to get better at brooding in really soft light. I like to ponder. I think this is going to help me become more inward and mysterious.’

Which sounds like the Paul we used to know. Self-deprecating and down to earth. Not taking such grand titles too seriously. Actor Ryan Reynolds, voted Sexiest Man Alive in 2010, did predict Paul will underplay the title. ‘I think this opportunity will be wasted on him, like so many before him. He's going to play it shy. He's going to play it bashful, humble.’

But that is kinda Paul’s USP, isn’t it? That he gets on with life in that unassuming low-profile manner of his in all the films he acts in. He is the guy who plays the suburban Sisyphus, doing what he must do.

Perhaps that’s the nub. ‘Sexy’ is not a static word in the sapiosexually charged world of ours. It is a word that casually changes clothes in public, going from worked out calves to twinkling eyes, from nipple piercings to a cigarette hanging off the corner of a mouth. The definitions change from minute to minute, era to era. A dude to talk to, that’s who we want. Pro-vax non-threatening bro type with feminist sensibilities…

What we do know is we now have a job before us. We must imagine Paul pole-dancing in itsy-bitsy attire. Get your dark glasses, girls. He shouldn’t catch us looking at him that way.