Paul Rudd 'miserable' when slimming down for Ant-Man role

Paul Rudd in a scene from the Ant-Man movie.

Paul Rudd was miserable to be around for a year as he embarked on a bland diet to get in shape to portray Marvel superhero Ant-Man.

The 46-year-old said he completely turned his life around so he would look the part of conman Scott Lang and his titular alter-ego in the new movie, but he admits it wreaked havoc on his social life.

"I didn't do anything fun for a year. I ate no carbs or sugar, I worked out. I basically made health and fitness the focus of my day, for a long time," he told Britain's Cover Media.

"I would work out with a trainer; I worked with a guy who was teaching me tumbling, how to do flips, things like that. I was eating a lot of protein and vegetables, and I was eating at very specific times of the day.

"I didn't drink any alcohol. And I was miserable to be around for about a year."

But Rudd confessed he soon learned to love his new healthy lifestyle.

"I'd never done anything like that before, to that extreme, and having the majority of my day built around that instead of making fitness something I tried to work in on the side while I went about my day, was really kind of great," he said.

"I woke up very early in the morning, I felt really good, I had lots of energy and it helped me also just get into the mind-set of this character. I figured if I'm in really good shape, I will feel like less of an impostor in the role."

- WENN