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Paul Rudd plays the moderator of the first-ever meeting dedicated to solving America’s climate crisis in “A Statement,” the latest film from Oscar-winning director Tom McCarthy. Set at a Florida beachside resort in 1980,
the film follows 20 experts who spend a weekend in a conference room and — analogous to “12 Angry Men” — hash out their differences over how to draft a statement to Congress about the effects of carbon dioxide emissions on the climate.
Rudd found himself more connected to the sprawling ensemble cast, which includes Paul Giamatti, Tatiana Maslany and John Turturro, by leaving his smartphone in his trailer, a practice he claims he’s now followed for some time.
“I don’t go to sets with a phone. I haven’t done that for a while now,” he told Variety Saturday evening during the film’s world premiere at the New York Film Festival. “It’s important to put it down. Anytime. They’re horrible things. I’m addicted to it like everybody else. They’re facilitating our own destruction.”
Rudd revealed that McCarthy enforced a “very strict no phones policy” on the set of “A Statement,” which he found brought his castmates closer together and made filming feel more like a play.
“The world has changed since cell phones have existed. We don’t look at each other or talk to each other quite the same way,” Rudd said. “Now, [with the phone ban], we were forced to really spend time with each other and talk. Working on a movie set in 1980, we’re dressed in a certain kind of way. It felt like, ‘Oh, yeah. I remember this. This feels like it used to feel when people sat around and spoke to one another.’”
Amy Ryan, whose character delivers a sobering wake-up call to the group at the film’s climax, encouraged other filmmakers to follow McCarthy’s lead. The absence of notifications and doomscrolling, she said, “definitely made the work much more rich.”
“What happens is there’s a five-minute break and people are connected. ‘Hey, what are you doing? How’s your morning? What do you think of this scene?’” Ryan explained. “I equate it to like when you quit sugar. In three days, it’s out of your system. You don’t miss it! And hopefully, it becomes like a toy you’re gonna get sick of.”
