Paul Rudd razzes Ray Lewis

Tremendous new Madden ad featuring Pittsburgh partisan Paul Rudd razzing Raven Ray Lewis:

Rudd is on record as being a Steelers fan since childhood, so he wasn't simply acting. During the publicity run-up to the 2007 release of 'Knocked Up,' Rudd talked at length with Post-Gazette movie critic Barb Vanchieri about his love for the black and gold.

"I used to go to Pittsburgh a lot when I was a kid. I was a diehard Steelers fan," said Rudd, who spent most of his youth in Kansas. "Huge. More than comedies or movies or anything like that, it was the main thing in my life that I cared about the most," he said.

"I would take trips to go to see games at Three Rivers Stadium. One of the reasons we were in Kansas City, my dad worked for TWA and that's where their hub was, why we moved there." Taking advantage of his father's flight benefits to see the black-and-gold on their home turf "was the most exciting thing I ever got to do." ...

"I still, actually, to this day, if I have to remember a phone number or an address or something, I still will remember numbers and associate them with '70s Steelers players," Rudd said.

"To be a kid and to be a Steelers fan during those years when they were just unbeatable, that was probably more of an inspiration than anything else. It kind of made you see -- no, you can win, anything's possible. The Steelers win everything."

His favorite Steeler from that era: wide receiver John Stallworth.

"There was a team of superstars, and he seemed like a guy who just showed up and did his job and was great at it. He never needed to be in the limelight, but he caught everything, and I rarely even got to see him interviewed. I mean it was certainly a different time, but while everyone was going off about how much they loved Lynn Swann, I always thought Stallworth was the guy."

Read the entire interview with Rudd.