Mark
Appearances
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
I was, you know, you know, it was amazing in the beginning was you couldn't shoot the body portion and the face portion at the same time. So I was locked down. You literally could not move your head and they would capture your facial gestures in this orb. And you couldn't move your head. And I'm such a physical actor and it's all connected, you know.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
And I just found that to be incredibly difficult and even frustrating. And as the technology moved along and I was developing it with them. I was telling them my experience. I was, you know, saying this would be better if we could do this. And they're like, oh, yeah, we're working on that. To now where I can walk on a set in my motion capture suit, I could play with the other actors.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
I could pick up props. I could do everything that you were not allowed to do in the beginning. And it's just taken this huge technological leap.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
Oh, my God. I mean, I wasn't well-known in comparison. It was a radical change in every way that I live publicly. I do lament the loss of being able to observe the world without it observing me back or being the one observed. But, you know, it's like everything. It's a blessing and it's a curse at once.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
It can. I have developed this incredible way. If I'm by myself, I could pretty much disappear. Especially in New York. No one looks at each other in New York. We're so on top of each other that Everyone wants to give each other their space and they want their space in an emotional sense. And so that means not looking people in the face or the eyes.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
You know, you'd be on the subway and there's 100 people there and not one person's, you know, unless they know each other or they're a tourist, is looking at anybody else.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
I'll do that. I'll wear such a ridiculous hat. My glasses are so ridiculous that people are embarrassed to look at me. It's like a camouflage of unsightliness.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
Oh, days. And, you know, we became friends. And I asked if it was okay for him to be with us while we were shooting. And obviously he's so invested in it. He was actually a filmmaker first. He went to AFI in the screenwriting program. Yeah. And he just became this invaluable reference for all of us. But I went to the Globe the first day.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
I had my phone camera and I had my notepad and I just said, hey, I'd really just like to sit down and watch you work and watch you work the phones and just watch you do what you do. And if you don't mind, I'd like to shoot a little bit of it and And he's like, OK, I'm not really used to that. I'm usually the one who's doing the questions and, you know, the recording. But, yeah, OK.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
And it's funny because I know what this process is now. Yeah. And people, they come to you and they're nervous and they're afraid in a way. And then they start to slowly get to know you and they start to open up and they feel safe and they realize that you're just there trying to do right by them. And eventually they show you who they are. But Mike didn't take very long.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
And, you know, I saw him working those phones and he had a little bit of a temper sometimes too, which I also just loved, you know. And after that, we usually have to have a drink with somebody for really for them to feel safe with you. That's what I found. And after you have a drink with them, all of a sudden... It's like, okay, we shared the wine, we broke the bread, but we can be real.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
Certain people have tension in their bodies in certain places, and it makes them move a certain way. Mike had a sort of... like a tension in his solar plexus area. And it sort of tilts his pelvis forward a little bit. And it's just a subtle thing.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
But the physical work that I've learned how to do was, if you could start picking up some physical qualities of a person, it actually starts to inform a lot about them. And there's a toughness about someone who's holding their pelvis. I mean, you know, where they're holding their solar plexus like that, you know, it's someone who's like protecting something and it makes you walk a certain way.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
And it sort of pulls down on your spine, your vocal cords in a certain way. And if you can just listen to that a little bit, you start to get something about the person. And, yeah, so for Mike it was that, you know. These little things, I don't know what it is, but when I'm watching someone, I'm like, oh, that's really interesting. I want to try to assume some of that.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
But I also found when you start doing that, there's an inner quality that starts to come into view. Well, I think that's really interesting. Okay, good. I mean, sometimes I start talking about this and people like literally glaze over. They're like, uh, pelvic? Okay.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
Yes, it was a very interesting household, religiously speaking. My family was Italian Catholics, very Catholic, my grandparents. Then my mom and her mother became evangelicals in the First Assembly of God, Pentecostal, Jimmy Swaggart era. And my dad split off completely in a whole other direction into the Baha'i faith. And so, you know, you're in the family and everyone's participating.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
Well, you know, I hadn't really played anything like this, and I hadn't done an accent. I hadn't really done any kind of a period piece yet. And, you know, you sort of, you have a career going and you sort of get a brand and mistakenly you start to believe maybe that's who you are, that's how the world wants to see you. And, yeah. And I really wanted to be great in a Yergos Lanthimos movie.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
No, no, no. You know, there was a first assembly of God in Kenosha, Wisconsin at the time. And my grandmother was a member of it. And, you know, these different evangelical preachers would, you know, sort of tour the And he was the star of that at that time. He was, you know, he was their, you know, Elvis of evangelicals. And it was music. I mean, it was it was a pretty lively experience.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
And so my grandmother for her birthday asked me to be saved. And I was like, saved from what? I'm like, I'm eight. I haven't even gotten to do anything yet, really. And it was like, no, you were born. I mean, the second you come through the birth canal, you've sinned. That's the original sin. And I'm like, oh, yeah, okay. Oh, yeah, makes sense to me.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
But I was like, yeah, I'll do whatever you want, Grandma, you know? So what was that like? Did everyone sort of line up? Yeah, so they bring the kids down. It was a special moment. We're like, okay, we're going to bring the children down, you know? And so I'm walking down there. I was like, I want to be saved. I mean, I don't want to go to hell. I certainly don't, you know, like that would suck.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
And it's going to make my grandma happy. But man, this is so intense down here. And he's so sweaty and everyone's like talking in different languages. And it was so I got down there. And we're lined up and they're going, you know, each kid's getting preyed on from kid to kid and they're falling down or, you know, people are falling over and it wasn't happening. And I was like, I'm not feeling it.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
And then finally I was like, oh man, I'm not going to be the one who's like, doesn't get Jesus today. I'm like, no, not me. And I just kind of went with it, you know?
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
Oh, God, I felt so ashamed. Yeah. Are you kidding me? I was like, I didn't feel anything. Like, I was supposed to. Everyone here is, like, feeling so much, and I didn't feel anything. And, you know, I went back up there. And she's like, how was it? I was like, oh, it was really good, you know. She's like, did you feel it? I was like, yeah, yeah, I felt it, yeah.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
And, man, I mean, what that sets up in you at so early an age is so difficult for your ongoing relationship. It just became this thing that was always there that I didn't understand. Now I do, but I didn't then. And it was just a shameful feeling.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
No, no. I sucked. I wanted to be an actor. from very early on I just didn't know what acting really was you know I had already found myself performing I found myself you know doing skits from the Three Stooges you know doing slapstick pretending I was Charlie Chaplin like I was doing all that but there was no culture for that in you know in my family we were They were house painters.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
Then they became construction painters. They were business people. They were very serious about making money. And there wasn't a lot of room for this kind of being a dreamer. So it just wasn't anything that was a possibility to me. My senior year of high school, I dropped out of wrestling. I was an avid wrestler. And I dropped out of wrestling to join...
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
And so I said to him, it's ridiculous now, but I said to him, Yergos, I want to work with you. I love you. I don't want to suck in your movie. And I don't know if I'm the right guy for this, you know? So did he have to convince you? It didn't take very much. He just laughed at me. He's just like, you're him. And he just refused to even entertain my trepidation.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
the drama department because i'd walk by the drama department and they'd all be wrestling on the ground just like us but it was like 10 girls and two guys and you know i was like why am i not doing that wrestling you know and so i um and i went in there and i was just like
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
thrilled by it, how emotionally open it was and diverse and accepting and silly and, you know, everything you couldn't be as a young man, you know. And one of the kids in play broke his arm and my teacher, Nancy Curtis, who was like this great theater teacher in the middle of Virginia Beach, like really great. She came to me and said, I want you to replace Scott. And I said, you do?
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
And she's like, yeah. And I was like, I don't know. I don't know if I could do it. She's like, I think you could do it. And so I did it. And I did the first scene. And I was basically just ripping off Peter Falk and Columbo. And I did the first scene. And I got a big laugh. And I said, oh, my God, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. This is amazing.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
It was like that feedback that you got. Yes, that that relationship, you know, it's like it was it was just magical because not only did I get to laugh, but I knew everything. I knew the laugh was coming. I, I felt this communication with the audience and it was telling me what it was asking for. And then it was responding with the laugh or the silence or whatever. And I went to Nancy afterwards.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
I said, um, Mrs. Curtis. Yes, Mark. Uh, Do you think it's too late for me to become an actor? I mean, I'm already 18. She's just like, no, Mark, I don't think it's too late. Yes, I think you can become an actor.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
Oh, it's horrible. I mean, I was a jock. I was a surfer. I was a skater. I was in a punk band. I was as much a dude as you could possibly be. But I also just had this other thing that I wanted to try.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
Well, my family moved to San Diego the day after I graduated from high school. And, you know, all my friends had gotten into colleges. I didn't get into any colleges. I was a terrible student. I didn't even really apply to that many. And I ended up in San Diego, and I didn't have a plan.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
And, you know, through a whole fantastical set of circumstances, I heard about the Stella Adler Conservatory in Los Angeles. That was like two hours away.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
Yeah, she was there, but I had the good fortune of walking into the school, and there was a woman there, Joanne Linville, who I recognized immediately as the Romulan commander of Star Trek. And she said, what are you doing here? And I said, I don't have an audition. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't have any real training, but I want to spend my life...
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
being an actor and she said well darling you've come to the right place and she really took me under her wing And I wasn't good in the beginning. And it took me a long time. You know who I was in class with who was amazing was Benicio Del Toro. Like, literally, the second he walked in, he was amazing. And I looked at him. I was like, oh, my God, I'll never be that guy. And...
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
Yeah, it took me a long time and a lot of auditions before I started to figure out what I was doing.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
Oh, my God. It was such a blast. It was so freeing and... You don't realize where a certain role is going to take you. They all take you on kind of a journey. And they all sort of, if you let them, talk to some part of you, somewhere you are, somewhere you want to be, or something that's maybe on your mind subconsciously. And it was really about just being free.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
He was so many people that I knew growing up. And he just felt so close to me. I read it and I said, I have to play this. There's no one else in the world that could play this. And I got to somehow convince Kenny of that, who at the time was really... Because of financial reasons and the way movies are made, he was dead set on getting a star to do it. And I wasn't that.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
But I just was so moved by it. And I felt, I got to play this. There's no one else. You begged to get the role. Basically, I mean, Kenny was like, I can't use you. you know, you don't look anything like Laura Linney. She's the one we're going to cast. And I was just like, just let me come in for an audition, man. You know, we're like, I'm your, I'm a good friend.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
And, you know, and, and he's like, fine, just don't stick your manager on me. And I was like, fine, I won't, you know? And so, but he said, okay, you know, the casting's closed. We're going to go to another actor on Monday and, So just come to the production office and I'll tape you myself and I'll read the sides with you. I was like, thank you. And I went in there and
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
Man, I knew I had to be better than if I even ever got the part. And so I worked on it, and I worked on it, and I worked on it, and I knew it, and I went in there, and I already knew I had nothing to lose, so I was so free. And we read the first scene. He's holding the camera in one hand and reading the lines in the other, right? And after the first scene, he's like... It was really good.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
He was unhappy about that. Yeah, it wasn't joy. He's like, all right, let's read the next one. And I did that and he's like, oh, that was really good. You'd be really good in this part. And slowly but surely I won him over.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
Oh, I don't know what would have happened to me if I didn't get that role.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
Oh, for sure. To this day, I'm still waiting for the piano to fall. But that was particularly difficult because I was just starting a family. I'd just bought a house based on this next big job that was coming, which was with M. Night Shyamalan in Signs, co-starring with Mel Gibson. I mean, it was just like this explosion from that movie. And I was the hot guy. And it was all before me.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
And it was everything that I'd ever dreamed of. And I'd reached it. I was 33. And... It was gone like that. And I woke up and my face was paralyzed. And they didn't know if it was ever going to come back. And I couldn't even close my eye. And I looked terrible. And I have a baby at home. And my whole life was trying to get to that moment. And it seemed pretty much like it was over.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
And whatever feeling I had about God at that moment, let me tell you, we had a talking to. Like, I couldn't be more pissed at anything than I was at that moment to whatever, if there is or if there isn't a deity, you know, which is probably a common feeling people have.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
When it all comes crashing down around you, you sort of – you do become a believer for a moment, you know, like, please, please, please, please, please, please, please don't let the plane crash. Please. I'll go to church. You know, you know, you're, it's amazing how many people, when the plane's going down, you see praying around you, you know?
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
Um, but, uh, that was a real test of faith, um, that I didn't really pass. I was, you know, I was like, this can't be happening. Um, But of course, it is happening and it was happening. But I'll tell you, it's probably the best thing that ever happened to me. Really? I learned so much from it. And I had the good version of it where my face did come back. So I lost everything.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
I went through that experience. which made me grateful. It made me, you know, it made me compassionate. It made me aware of loss. It made me aware of, you know, how fragile life is. It just gave me so many lessons. And at the end of the day, it didn't really cost me much except for the hearing in my left ear, which was the deal I made.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
Hey, dude, if you're really there, please don't leave my son fatherless. Just take my left ear. Cool? Yeah. You got to be careful what deals you make. Yeah.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
Thanks, Sam. It was a great interview. It was really, really a great interview. I appreciate it.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
Yeah, it's, you know, even in the dramatic roles, I feel like I've always kind of had one foot on a banana peel and the other in the grave, you know? It's like, I just, I see that as like the aesthetic that I want to, you know, that is my North Star, if I could find a way of doing it. But to just do... All-out comedy that's so physical.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
And that pratfall is such an interesting thing because, you know, in comedy, what I find is that you have to be very open to play. And it's not an inner thing. It's this open thing and it happens in this kind of special space that's outside yourself. And so you have to be very open and aware and ready to grab whatever's being given to you and then play with it.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
And that pratfall, I think it's the one you're talking about when I come up the stairs.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
That was an accident. Oh, it was? Yes. But that's the thing. If you're in the flow of comedy, the accidents are the gold. Those are the gifts from God. There's another moment in the movie where Duncan farts when Max McCandless comes in to confront him, right? And that was like the acting gods just filled my belly with gas. And I was like, here we go. And poor Rami looked at me.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
He was so outraged and humiliated. And it was just the perfect... It was like, oh, we're into the scene. And it was literally that one take was the take that Yorgos used. But I guess why I'm telling you that is like... Great comedy is something that happens spontaneously and is playful. The same thing happens with drama. But people are so much more well-behaved around drama.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
So those moments, I can't lift my butt up and let one rip in Spotlight or Foxcatcher. Maybe Foxcatcher, but nowhere else.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
Yeah, I mean, it's such an interesting character in that way because he wants to project himself as the freewheeling, free-loving, libertine centralist. But really, at his core, he's incredibly conventional. He's very conventional in his idea of a man's place in the world and a woman's place in the world.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
And we see somebody whose whole projection of his personality comes undone when those concepts are really put to test by love.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
Whatever she strikes in him that he supposes is love. Whatever version of love he can get closest to. And we see that he's actually incredibly fragile. And he's actually incredibly needy. And he's actually incredibly vulnerable sometimes.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
The only time you want to do that kind of scene is if it's for comedy. It's just so horrible and awkward. And it's so horrible and awkward for everybody else. And then you add in the intimacy coordinator who's like literally giving you the thumbs up from behind the camera, you know, or giving you notes on your technique. So... We knew that was going to be a montage.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
At one point we were talking about trying to do every position in the Kama Sutra. Yeah. but there's like 110 now. I think they, you know, when you see that, yeah, when you see the helicopter or the, um, you know, the, the, the rowboat, you know, you're like, okay, they didn't come up with that in a Kama Sutra time, you know?
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
Um, but it's, yeah, to do that and to have in mind the comedy, there's a lot, you could do a lot of comedy with sex scenes, you know what I mean? They're already like kind of comic just by themselves. Um,
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
Honestly, not in my wildest dreams did I ever see myself coming from, you know, You Can Count on Me or even a romantic comedy, 13 Going on 30 or In the Cut to doing a superhero movie. But, you know, you mentioned Robert, Robert. Robert revolutionized the sort of tentpole studio film and really the industry by his performance in Iron Man. And they took a big swing with him and it really paid off.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
But what Robert did was he created a space for really complex indie actors to come into these big spectacle films and and ground them in really wonderful character work.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
It's the man-canceling suit. It makes you look big everywhere you want to look small and small everywhere you want to look big. It's the most humiliating thing in the world. I had a little loincloth made for it at one point as the years went on because it's just so not modest. And so it's the most vulnerable thing in the world. As an actor, you learn to love a costume.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
You learn to hide behind props. You learn to... sink into a set and and lose yourself in the world but when you're in green screen and you know it's just you and you're naked and it's all your imagination you have to put things there that aren't there you have to play off people that aren't there You have to use props that aren't there. This is in the beginning. It's changed quite a bit now.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
But you know what I found? All the theater training that I had, you walk onto a stage and you're in a black box, basically. You have to really develop your imagination to make that place a forest or a castle or, you know, a desolate landscape and, you know, Samuel Beckett's mind of nowhere and no place. and make that real and something that you can live off of.
Fresh Air
Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit
So in a lot of ways, this ancient technology that I'd been so versed in actually was the best preparation for this new modern thing that was happening.
Fresh Air
For 'Severance' Star Adam Scott, Work & Life Can't Be Separated
Chris, honestly, I'm great. I'm just exploring whatever fun activity pops into my brain. But check this out. I'm teaching myself how to do claymation videos.
Fresh Air
For 'Severance' Star Adam Scott, Work & Life Can't Be Separated
Did you have to tell her parents that she was dead?
Fresh Air
For 'Severance' Star Adam Scott, Work & Life Can't Be Separated
Let me ask you this, Bob. Why wait two years? Well, I've got to make more money. Okay, well, look, I hear you. Believe me. But what if I were to tell you that I could sell this house for 30% above market right now? That'd be great. Yeah. Could you do it? In a heartbeat, Robbie. You know what? I'd even do it for four-fifths commission. Oh, that'd be fantastic. Yeah. That'd be fantastic. Yeah.
Fresh Air
For 'Severance' Star Adam Scott, Work & Life Can't Be Separated
No, it would be kick-ass, bro. Oh, man. Right there. Oh.
Fresh Air
For 'Severance' Star Adam Scott, Work & Life Can't Be Separated
I dabbled. Are you a... A professional waiter?
Fresh Air
For 'Severance' Star Adam Scott, Work & Life Can't Be Separated
Well, you remember me from anything else?
The Ramsey Show
You Can Build Wealth No Matter Where You Are in Life
Yes, we're trying to get out of debt. Got about $250,000, including our mortgage and doctors and credit cards. And so we're working on that. And we're just wondering, I'm 51, wife's 48. So we know in the next 10, 15 years or so we'll retire. So is it still wise to hold off on investing and
The Ramsey Show
You Can Build Wealth No Matter Where You Are in Life
Pause that and pay the debt because also we have an opportunity that if we can sell our house, we can move on to some family land and put a trailer there to cut down on costs. So just didn't know what the best plan is.
The Ramsey Show
You Can Build Wealth No Matter Where You Are in Life
Oh, it's close to 60%. We've already done that.
The Ramsey Show
You Can Build Wealth No Matter Where You Are in Life
About $240,250, something like that.
The Ramsey Show
You Can Build Wealth No Matter Where You Are in Life
Well, it's about $180,000. I'm not good with math. I'll stop there.
The Ramsey Show
You Can Build Wealth No Matter Where You Are in Life
uh credit cards uh a personal loan and medical bills okay tell me how much the credit cards are tell me how much the personal loans are and tell me how much the medicals are uh the credit cards are they're probably close to twenty thousand okay then that personal loan personal loans uh probably about twenty three thousand okay and then that medical debt i don't have an exact number on the medical day because i just figured it all up this one
The Ramsey Show
You Can Build Wealth No Matter Where You Are in Life
Probably about $3,000, $2,600, $2,600 plus $3,000, so about $56,000. Okay, good.