On the whole, Paul Rudd has a teeny-tiny part to play in the Marvel Cinematic Universe – he is Ant-Man, after all, who's literally the size of insects. But in his corner of the MCU, Rudd's a big man, starring as the superhero of the "Ant-Man" movies as well as co-writing them.

Rudd's ex-con/super-dad Scott Lang is on a mission of redemption and derring-do in director Peyton Reed's sequel "Ant-Man and the Wasp," which reteams Lang with love interest/new superhero Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly), aka the Wasp. The movie debuts on digital HD platforms Tuesday (and Blu-ray/DVD Oct. 16), and Rudd shares his thoughts on two deleted scenes premiering exclusively at usatoday.com.

The first centers on antagonist Sonny Burch (Walton Goggins), a black-market tech dealer who's out to get the quantum technology – and the size-changing gadgetry – of Ant-Man's ally (and Hope's dad) Hank Pym (Michael Douglas). In the scene, Sonny sees security footage of Hank shrinking down his lab building to the size of luggage and tells his goons he wants it: "That, my friend, is how I stay in the picture."

"There's always the challenge of, if this is a guy who's going after tech, in what ways does he learn about this scenario and who these people are and how are we going to motivate him to try and get this stuff?" Rudd says.

The other deleted scene was cut near the end of the film. One of the heroes' journeys revolves around saving Janet Van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) from the Quantum Realm, a trippy subatomic-level place where she's been stuck for 30 years. Hank finds a way to locate and rescue her, and the sequence shows a little more of their exploration, including Janet communicating with a huge alien-like creature.

"If she is alive, what would that place look like and what would have been going on while she was there and not up on terra firma?" Rudd says. "This idea that there are other things down there that you could interact with is interesting, and God knows there are tardigrades and all kinds of microscopic things. Treating it almost like outer space made sense."

Of course, Ant-Man knows the Quantum Realm all too well since (spoiler alert!) he got stuck down there on a mission when the end of "Ant-Man and the Wasp" lined up with the apocalyptic climax of "Avengers: Infinity War."

Rudd is supposed to be in "Avengers 4" next year, so presumably he gets out. "That would be good. We'll see. God knows how they edit me," quips the actor, who's finished his reshoots on the project. "As far as I know, I'm done. I never really know for sure until the movie comes out."

So is all that fun or frustrating? "The very nature of this job is one that leaves us in the dark most of the time. So it's not too frustrating, but it would be cool to know what I was going to be doing next year or the year after," Rudd says, laughing.

He acknowledges that it's pretty cool to actually be in a proper "Avengers" film. (He also had a small role in "Captain America: Civil War.") "It's a strange sensation to be in something that has so much interest worldwide. The closest experience I've had was coming on at the tail end of the show 'Friends' and in a sense it set the table for something like this, which is a similar experience only now they're all wearing capes."