Born April 6, 1969 in Passaic, NJ to British parents, he graduated high school from Shawnee Mission West in 1987, before moving on to study theater at the University of Kansas. Though at first he was dead set on performing only comic improv and monologues, Rudd did a sudden about-face with a role in Shakespeare’s MacBeth, giving him a thirst for more dramatic training. He later attended Pasadena's American Academy of Dramatic Arts on a Spencer Tracy Scholarship, followed by a semester at Oxford's British Drama Academy, where he appeared as "Hamlet" in scenes directed by Ben Kingsley. While in England, he also co-produced the Globe Theatre's production of Howard Brenton's "Bloody Poetry," in which he starred as writer Percy Shelley.

Returning to the United States in the early 1990s, he began his career billed as Paul Stephen Rudd to avoid confusion with stage and television actor Paul Rudd (born 1940). He received great exposure with his first role as an aspiring filmmaker married to Reed Halsey (Ashley Judd, later Noelle Parker) on "Sisters" (NBC, 1991-96), a role he played from 1992-95. He also began appearing in longforms, including the CBS miniseries "The Fire Next Time" (1993), the drama "Moment of Truth: Stalking Back" (NBC, 1993) and Joe Dante's "Runaway Daughters" segment of Showtime's "Rebel Highway" (1994). Displaying his comic skills, Rudd co-starred as a genial Chicago social worker opposite Tim Conlan as his raunchy photographer roommate in the short-lived twentysomething’s sitcom, "Wild Oats" (Fox, 1994).

Rudd finally broke through in Amy Heckerling's hit comedy, "Clueless" (1995), playing Alicia Silverstone's college-aged, know-it-all stepbrother/would-be love interest. As the gravitas anchor amid the giggly schoolgirls, he ignited the fantasies of boy-next-door seekers everywhere. That year, he was also cast in the less impressive film, "Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers” which was actually his first screen role – the finished film debuting after "Clueless.” The following year, he played a jazzed-up Paris (renamed 'Dave Paris') in Baz Luhrmann's updated, rock 'n' roll version of "William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet" and as a goofy aspiring filmmaker in the comedy "The Size of Watermelons" (shown at Cannes). He followed with a supporting role in the period drama "The Locusts,” which reunited him with Ashley Judd, before playing a young man attempting to retrieve a Dear Jane letter in the middling comedy "Overnight Delivery,” both in 1997.

Rudd continued turning heads when he played a gay man involved with an unwed mother (Jennifer Aniston) in Nicholas Hytner's "The Object of My Affection.” Despite the vanilla aspects of a contrived romance doomed by its players' inherently different instinctual drives, Rudd's intelligent portrayal elevated his nice guy role above what playwright-screenwriter Wendy Wasserstein had provided for him. Having made his Broadway debut in Alfred Uhry's "The Last Night of Ballyhoo" (1997), he initially balked at leaving its cast to make "Affection," but returned after shooting completed to resume his part as suitor to a dissenting member of a Jewish family trying to assimilate in 1930s Atlanta.

The following year saw him reunite with Hytner on Broadway as the lovesick Orsino, spouting the Bard's most poetic lines from Twelfth Night alongside Helen Hunt. After sporting long, pointed sideburns for his role as a recently jilted lover in "200 Cigarettes," Rudd returned to the stage opposite Calista Flockhart in "Bash," a trio of one-acts by Neil LaBute that skewered the playwright’s Mormon religion. In the evening's final segment, he and Flockhart portrayed Mormon college students visiting New York City, with Rudd playing off his boyish charm and delivering a chilling description of his character's participation in a brutal attack on two gay men. He went on to reprise the role in Los Angeles and London.

Moving back to the big screen, he co-starred as World War II pilot Wally Worthington in Lasse Hallstrom's "The Cider House Rules" (1999) – the first of John Irving's novels adapted by the writer himself. Unfortunately, the streamlined film narrative reduced the part dramatically from its prose origins and left Rudd with little to do. There was no reducing his next roles, however. Rudd starred opposite Andie MacDowell in "Reaching Normal" (Showtime, 2000), written and directed by Anne Heche, and traded on his preppy looks to embody F. Scott Fitzgerald narrator Nick Carraway in the 2001 A&E adaptation of "The Great Gatsby." A turn in the ridiculous "Wet Hot American Summer" (2001) set the stage for one of Rudd's more memorable and visible roles, when he landed the plumb part of Mike Hannigan, Phoebe Buffat’s straight-laced and level-headed beau, on the hit sitcom "Friends" from 2002-04. He had reportedly taken on the role at the behest of former co-star and friend, Aniston.

Rudd reunited with LaBute for "The Shape of Things" (2003), another of the auteur’s sharp-edged, harsh looks at the battles of the sexes, in which Rudd played a young man who radically makes himself over after becoming involved with a mysterious beauty (Rachel Weisz). Mixing things up for a bit, Rudd took a role opposite Will Ferrell in the comedy, "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgandy" (2004), the most effective demonstration of his comedic skills to date. Rudd played a misogynist expose reporter in 1970s-era San Diego, who bolsters news anchor Burgandy's (Ferrell) attempts to freeze out their station's first female on-air reporter (Christina Applegate). Rudd's increasingly deft comic abilities caught the right attention, landing him in "The 40-Year-Old Virgin.” Written and directed by Apatow and starring Steve Carell, “Virgin” co-starred Rudd as one of the supportive, if sometimes misguided, co-workers trying to help their oddball friend (Carell) lose his virginity.

Jumping back on stage, Rudd appeared on Broadway with first timer Julia Roberts in her much publicized and sold out dramatic debut, "Three Days of Rain." Opening in April 2006, the show closed its doors in June, spending a mere three months on the Great White Way, after an onslaught of poor reviews and rapidly dwindling audience attendance. Meanwhile, Rudd made a small appearance in “Night at the Museum” (2006) as a bond trader and stepfather to a young boy (Jake Cherry) too embarrassed to know his real dad (Ben Stiller), a down-and-out dreamer who desperately takes a night watchman’s job at a history museum, only to discover that the exhibits come alive at night.

After starring as a clam digger with artistic aspirations in the low-budget indie “Diggers” (2007), Rudd played Ethan the Drug Lord in “Reno 911: Miami” (2007), the big screen treatment of Comedy Central’s hit about a bumbling squad of Reno cops. Rudd then got his chance to make himself an even bigger household name with “Knocked Up” (2007), an unrelenting comedy from Rudd’s friend and director Apatow, about an up-and-coming entertainment journalist (Katherine Heigl) whose one-night stand with a disheveled slacker (Seth Rogen) results in an unwanted pregnancy. Rudd played Heigl’s hen-pecked brother-in-law who turns out to be a lousy parental role model – to predictably hilarious results.