In 2009 Paul Rudd starred in “I Love You, Man,” a buddy comedy co-starring Jason Segel that felt more like a romantic comedy. In one of the more memorable scenes of the film, after Peter Klaven (Rudd) spends a day jamming out with Sydney Fife (Segel), he comes home and tells his fiance, Zooey Rice (Rashida Jones) that he was “slapping the bass big time.” He tries to demonstrate to her how he was “slapping the bass” while repeating the phrase in an increasingly worse accent. “More than any other thing, yeah, ‘I slapped the bass’ is probably the line that, I’ll just walk down the street and I’ll hear somebody yell it from somewhere,” he told GQ.
For Rudd, the role is one of his favorites from his career. “I loved playing that character,” he recalled. “Awkward, insecure, just all that stuff is really fun to play. It probably comes a little too easy to me because I relate to it too much.” Rudd admits that not everyone is so fond of the line. “I’ve met a few bass players in my life that want to strangle me, like, ‘Dude, you ruined my life with that f***ing joke.'” For the rest of us, we still think it’s a great catchphrase.
