It took a while for Paul Rudd to realise just what he had got himself into. Yes, the guy who's best known as a supporting player in the vast comedy squad coached by Judd Apatow, is now a member of an even mightier Hollywood team.
He's a Marvel superhero. He's Ant-Man. He's playing him - and alter ego Scott Lang - in the new movie introducing his shrinking super-strength-ex-con-turned-Avenger.
Despite Rudd's involvement in the movie which ranged from script work to performing as Ant-Man in front of motion-capture cameras, it wasn't until afterwards he felt like this smallest of roles might well be the start of something big.
"I just worked on Captain America 3," an affable Rudd tells TimeOut from Los Angeles. "And it was kind of the first time I saw all of them in their costumes and it all became very real in a way that it wasn't while working on Ant-Man.
"Because it's like, 'Ohmigod I have seen that silver arm in the movies. I have seen that shield in the movies. Ohmigod, I can actually touch Captain America. I can actually talk to Captain America'.
"The whole thing was surreal and very exciting. It's the time I felt: 'Ohmigod. I am in the band'."
Still, the role has had its drawbacks as 46-year-old Rudd has found. When he first told his then 9-year-old son that Dad was going to be in a superhero movie playing Ant-Man, the response was: "I can't wait to see how stupid that'll be."
The quip has done the rounds in the build-up to the movie's release.
"I don't know how excited Marvel is about that," laughs Rudd. "But he did say that, I think, more than anything to get a rise out of me and he thought it would be funny. It did really make me laugh.
Paul Rudd features on the cover of this week's TimeOut:
"But I must say that my kids have never been excited about any job I have ever had. They have barely seen a movie that I have done. But both of them - particularly my son - are so excited for this movie. Every time it comes on TV he calls me over and he can't wait. That's a real thrill for me as a dad."
A movie about the comic book character, who first appeared in 1962 as one of the original Avengers, has been in a stop-start development for many years.
It dates back to the early years of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) which kicked off with the first Iron Man movie in 2008.
British director Edgar Wright - best-known for his Simon Pegg-starring genre spoofs, Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and The World's End - had been down to direct the Ant-Man script Marvel had first hired him and partner Joe Cornish to write in 2006.
Wright got Rudd involved. But in May last year, it was announced Wright had left the project over differences with Marvel in the script and the approach he wanted to take.
The parting of the ways was mutual, says Rudd.
"Everything that has been said is true. Edgar has a way of working. Marvel has a way of working. Edgar felt what he wanted to do and possibly what Marvel wanted might have been two different things.
"He forsaw that it was not going to work in the way that either of them wanted it to. Edgar left and so then we were left with what we needed to do ..."
Rudd roped in Anchorman director-writer Adam McKay to work on the script with him. Marvel signed up another action movie newbie, Peyton Reed, to direct as well as a rewrite team.
Rudd says he was rocked by the upheavals though he never considered walking away from the project.
"Well you know I was understandably bummed out and there were certain things that I could and couldn't do ... Marvel put me at ease pretty quickly. They really do know what they are doing."
"Certainly Edgar has his fans - I'm a huge one. They both have very passionate fanbases, Marvel and Edgar Wright. Deservedly so."
"I still feel the movie is [Wright and Cornish's] story. It's their foundation and it's got their - not to sound disgusting - DNA all over it. Take that how you will."
The movie also stars Michael Douglas as Hank Pym, who in the comics was the original Ant-Man, having invented the shrinking technology, and Evangeline Lilly as Hope Van Dyne - Pym's daughter.
Rudd's Lang gets a trio of fellow ex-cons to help him in the movie's main plot, a heist - but of what and why is still under wraps.
Ant-Man's enemy in the movie is the wasp-like Yellowjacket, the supervillain created by scientist Darren Cross (played by Corey Stoll).
Their battleground isn't epic so much as microscopic. The trailer has the pair tossing railway wagons at each other as if they are toys - because they are.
So just what do you have to do to play an bug-sized superhero?
"When you are doing this kind of stuff you tend to forget about looking foolish because one knows the best people in the business are going to do the [post-production] on it and make it look incredible.
"So there was a real comfort in that and I never was self-conscious. But the actual experience was bizarre - standing in a circle, surrounded by tons of cameras and pretending somebody was stepping on me."
"What I love about the films is that you have these amazing action sequences that are overwhelming and terrifying and thrilling and then you pull back and you realise you are on a train set.
"That constant back and forth of what it looks like from changing perspectives adds to a lot of the fun.
Given the comedy credentials of those involved, how funny a movie is Ant-Man meant to be?
"Well I mean there are certainly funny moments in it. There is levity, There are very dramatic moments. There is action. There is all of that stuff that you have come to expect in a Marvel film. That said, it works very much on its own.
"Iron Man was funny in the same kind of way."
Iron Man has other similarities - both are suit-powered heroes inhabited by actors you might have once thought would be unlikely action movie leads, though Robert Downey jnr's Tony Stark is a tech-genius billionaire playboy, while Scott Lang is a guy who's gone off the rails He gets a second chance at life by donning a suit that shrinks him, allowing him to command colonies of ants and employ the insects' bodyweight-to-strength ratio.
Still, he just might be the most relatable Marvel superhero yet, says Rudd
"This character I am playing is just a guy. He was not born with superpowers. He's a father. He's made mistakes in his life. He's trying to live the best way he can and make the right decisions for himself and his family, so all these things that he is experiencing are very relatable. I think that is an important component to it all."
Who: Paul Rudd
What: Ant-Man
When and where: Opens July 16
- TimeOut
The Hollywood star is 70 but has no plans to retire from acting.