If you haven’t seen the new Nintendo Switch 2 commercial featuring Paul Rudd, where have you been? It’s a delightful throwback to one of the Ant Man and Anchorman actor’s first ever acting roles, a SNES commercial from 1991. It’s daft, it’s silly, and we didn’t think we could love Rudd anymore.
Following the commercial’s release, IGN published an interview with the actor who talked about reuniting with Nintendo 34 years after their first partnership.
“Well, Nintendo reached out to me,” Rudd told IGN’s Brian Altano, saying that he “got a real kick out of this idea” to revisit the original commercial. “I just thought that this idea they had about redoing it was really funny and it would be fun and it just kind of came about like that.”
After chatting about the questionable fashion choices in the 1991 SNES ad, which Rudd and Nintendo have replicated in the 2025 revamp, Altano asks Rudd if the new commercial made him “miss the ’90s.” Rudd laughs, and says “I think it made me nostalgic in all of the right ways,” which we’d say is a success — and exactly how the commercial made us feel.
Emphasising that feeling more, Rudd continues that it “did have this feel of nostalgia but kind of all leaning toward the future and it was kind of fun to see both of those things hit at the same time.”
The actor also talks about growing up close to an arcade, which he remembers being “the greatest thing ever.” And his favourite game? Donkey Kong, the OG arcade version. Rudd speaks fondly of the game, saying it was “so different” from any other games at the time.
The duo talk about Rudd’s thoughts on Mario, his favourite Mario Kart racer, the ability to play Switch while traveling for work, and the Switch 2’s camera and GameChat functionality in a rather lovely little conversation.
Check out the brief chat up top if you want to hear what Rudd thinks of the Switch 2, and then let us know what you think of this retro revival in the comments.