Fresh Air - Mark Ruffalo Hates The Hulk Suit

Episode Date: December 31, 2024

Ruffalo played a debauched cad in Yorgos Lanthimos' bawdy, dark comedy Poor Things. It was a big departure from his previous work playing real people in dramas like Spotlight or Foxcatcher, or as the Incredible Hulk in the Marvel movies. The Oscar-nominated actor spoke with Sam Briger about these roles, how he got his start in acting, and how a brain tumor changed his life.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

What's in store for the music, TV, and film industries for 2025? We don't know, but we're making some fun, bold predictions for the new year. Listen now to the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast from NPR. This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. We're continuing our end of the year series, featuring a few of the 2024 interviews we've particularly enjoyed. On this episode, we have an interview with Mark Ruffalo. This year, he was nominated for an Oscar in the best supporting actor category

for his role in the movie, Poor Things, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. He spoke with our producer, Sam Brigger, in February about that role and his career. Here's Sam. In Poor Things, Mark Ruffalo plays a character described in the movie as a cad and a rake. His name is Duncan Weddeburn, and he seduces Emma Stone's character, Bella Baxter, to

run away from her home and fiancé and have an adventure with him in Lisbon. Let's hear a scene. You're a prisoner, and I aim to free you. Something in you. Some hungry being, hungry for experience, freedom, touch. To see the unknown and know it. So why am I here, you ask? I'm going to Lisbon on Friday. I'd like you to come.

Lisbon of Portugal? That is Lisbon I speak of. God never allow it. In In that scene, Duncan Wedderburn is looking at Bella Baxter like a cartoon cat who's trapped the canary. What he doesn't realize is that Bella Baxter is no ordinary young innocent to corrupt. She is in fact the result of a Frankenstein-like experiment by a scientist, played by Willem Dafoe, who reanimated a dead woman's body by replacing her brain with the brain of her unborn baby. Bella goes through a rapid awakening to the world around her and to her own body and, like an infant who doesn't yet

know society's norms, is uninhibited to a degree that both attracts Wettaburn and undoes him. Mark Ruffalo's performance in Poor Things is hilarious and delicious and he himself describes to a degree that both attracts Wettaburn and undoes him. Mark Ruffalo's performance in Poor Things is hilarious and delicious, and he himself describes it as a big departure from his previous work in movies like Zodiac, Spotlight, Foxcatcher, The Kids Are Alright, You Can Count on Me, and of course,

several Marvel movies and TV shows where he plays the Incredible Hulk. Well, Mark Ruffalo, welcome back to Fresh Air. Marvel movies and TV shows where he plays the Incredible Hulk. Well, Mark Ruffalo, welcome back to Fresh Air. Thanks, Sam. It's really nice to be here. It's nice to have you. You said you had some trepidation about taking on this role. What were your concerns? 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. And you know, you sort of, you have a career going and you sort of, you 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 I really wanted to be great in a Yorgos Lanthimos movie. And so I said to him, it's ridiculous now, but I said to him, Yorgos, I want to work with you, I love you, I don't want to suck in your movie, and I I can, 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.

He just refused to even entertain my trepidation. Well, it is such a fun role. Like once you accepted it, did you have fun doing it? Oh my God, it was such a blast. It was, it was so freeing and you know, you don't, you don't realize where a certain role is going to take you. They all take you on kind of a journey, you know, and they all sort of, if you let them talk to some part of you, some somewhere you are somewhere you want to be or something that's, you know, maybe on your mind subconsciously. And it was really

about just being free. You've been in like romantic comedies and you've been in movies that have comedic elements like the Brothers Bloom or even in the Avengers movies, but I don't think you've ever had a role that was so broadly comic as this one. I mean, you even do a pratfall at one point. So can you just sort of compare what it's like to act

in something that's comedic like this compared to your more like dramatic roles? 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 I'm, is my North Star, if I could find a way of doing it. But to just do all of comedy that's so physical

and that Pratt Falls is such an interesting thing because, you know, in comedy, what I find is 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. And that pratfall, I think it's the one you're talking about when I come up the stairs.

Yeah. Yeah. They're almost like skating up the stairs, like your arms are going back and forth and then at the landing, you just go flop over. That was an accident. Oh, it was? Yes. But it was like, but that's the thing, like if you're really in, if you're in the flow of comedy, the accidents are the goal. Those are the gifts from God, you know?

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. He was so outraged and like humiliated. And it was just a perfect, it was like, oh, we're into the scene. And it was literally that one take, it was the take that your ghost used. But I guess why I'm telling you that is like, great comedy is something that happens spontaneously and is playful.

And that's, I mean, the same thing happens with drama. But, you know, people are so much more well-behaved around drama. So those moments, you know, I can't lift my butt up and let one rip in Spotlight or Foxcatcher, you know, maybe Foxcatcher, but nowhere else. The character in the movie is described as a cat and a rake, and he's disreputable, but he's definitely working like within the boundaries of society. And he's challenged and finally undone

by Emma Stone's like complete uninhibitedness. Can you talk about that? 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. And we see somebody whose whole projection of his personality comes undone when those concepts are really put to test by love. 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.

Well, let's hear a clip of him sort of getting undone by Emma Stone's behavior. This scene takes place. The two characters have been put ashore in France and Paris, penniless and you're completely dispirited. And Bella Baxter, Emma Stone's character, decides to go find money and so she prostitutes herself to get money and then comes back eating like pastries. I can't remember. It's an eclair. Yeah, an eclair, eating an eclair and you're like, where did this come from? So let's hear

some of that scene. I took his money, I thanked him, I laughed all the way to buy us these eclairs, and I thought so fondly, remembering the fierce, sweaty nights of ours. You f***ing for money! And as an experiment, it is good for our relationship, as it gladdens my heart toward you. My heart has been a bit dim on your weedy, sweary person lately. on your weedy, sweary person lately. You are a monster, a horn of monster, a demon sent from hell to rip my spirit to shreds,

to punish my tiny sins with a tsunami of destruction, to take my heart and pull at my talk, to ruin me. I look at you and I see nothing but ugliness. That last bit was uncalled for and makes no sense, as your odes to my beauty have been boring but constant. And this simple act erased all that.

You hoard yourself. But you are now going to explain to me as bad. Can I never win with you? It is the worst thing women can do. We should definitely never marry. I'm a flawed, experimenting person and I will need a husband with a more forgiving disposition. That's Mark Ruffalo and Emma Stone in Poor Things. As Mark Ruffalo's character, Duncan Wedderberg, sort of falls apart in just the onslaught of Emma Stone's uninhibitedness. So you know there's a sex scene montage and poor things that I

wanted to talk to you about. Like you've done sex scenes before but this is sex played for comedy. Like it's not supposed to be sexy. I mean it's it's it's meant to make the audience laugh. I mean, the characters are having a good time, but it's filmed to look awkward and rutting, and your character's even wearing a corset. So can you talk about, like, doing that kind of scene for comedy? The only time you want to do that kind of scene is if it's for comedy. It's just so, 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. At one point we were talking about trying to do every position in the Kama Sutra. But there's like 110 now. I think they, you know, when you see that, yeah, when you see the helicopter or the,

you know, the rowboat, you know, you're like, okay, they didn't come up with that in a Kamasutra time, you know. 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, I mean, they're already like kind of comic just by themselves. So Mark, I have to ask you about the big green guy. Yeah. Since 2012, you've been playing the Incredible Hulk in, as I said, a bunch of different Marvel

movies and TV shows, starting with the first Avengers movie. So in 2012, there were just a lot of superhero movies out there, and a lot of really good actors were being swept up in them, like particularly Robert Downey Jr. playing Iron Man. But like, did you ever think you were going to play a superhero? Honestly, not in my wild to doing a superhero movie. But you know, you mentioned Robert revolutionized the sort of tent pole 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. But what Robert did was he created a space for really complex indie actors to come into these big spectacle films and ground them in really wonderful character

work. To play the Hulk, you have to spend a lot of time acting in a motion capture suit. Like did you have any apprehensions about doing that? I hated it. It's the man canceling suit. You know, it makes you look big everywhere you want to look small and small everywhere you want to look big. It's just like, it's the most humiliating thing in the world.

I had a little loin cloth made for it at one point as the years went on, because it's just so not modest. It's the most vulnerable thing in the world, you know, as an actor, you know, you learn to love a costume, 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. But you know what I found that all the theater training that I had, you know, 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 a desolate landscape and Samuel Beckett's mind of nowhere and no place and make that real and something that you can live off of. So in a lot of ways, this ancient technology that I've been so versed in actually was the

best preparation for this new modern thing that was happening. That's really interesting. What about like just in terms of being expressive with your face because, you know, your face is obviously a big tool for an actor. Were you concerned that you would be doing all this work and it wouldn't be accurately captured by the animation? 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? 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 saying, this would be better if we could do this. And they're like, oh, yeah, we're working on that. Until now, where I can walk on a set

in my motion capture suit, I could play with the other actors, 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. What about the celebrity from being part of the Marvel universe? Like by the time you started being the Incredible

Hulk, like, you were already a very well-known and successful actor, but was the celebrity and the recognition sort of exponentially different? I wasn't, 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. Does it take away from like simple things like walking down the street or like going for a hike or something? It can. You know, I did have developed this incredible way. If I'm by myself, I could pretty much disappear.

Especially in New York. I mean, no one looks at each other in New York. You know, they just, 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 of the eyes. You know, you'd be on the subway and there's a hundred people there and not one person's, you know, unless they know each other or they're a tourist, is looking at anybody else. You know, they got their head down there on the phone or in the book, sleeping, whatever. Do you have to do like the cap and sunglasses thing all the time? I'll do that.

You know, I'll wear such a ridiculous hat, or like, you know, my glasses are so ridiculous that people are embarrassed to look at me. It's like a camouflage of unsightliness. If you're just joining us, our guest is actor Mark Ruffalo. He was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the film Poor Things. We'll be back after a short break. This is Fresh Air. Hey, it's Tanya Mosley. It's almost the end of the year, and this is the season when

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On NPR's Book of the Day podcast, we hear from all sorts of writers making bold arguments like the late President Jimmy Carter on Citizens United. So I think it's completely distorted the democratic purity or legitimacy of our elections in the United States. We hear about his life as a writer and from his biographer about President Carter's complex legacy. Listen to Book of the Day from NPR wherever you get your podcasts. On the latest NPR Politics podcast, we look back on the life and legacy of Jimmy Carter.

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works to expand equity and opportunity in cities across America. A century of impact, a future of opportunity. More at kresge.org. This is Fresh Air, I'm Sam Brigger. One of our favorite interviews from the year was with our guest, Mark Ruffalo. He was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor

for his role in the film, Poor Things. Some of his other movies include Spotlight, Foxcatcher, The Kids Are Alright, Zodiac, and You Can Count On Me. He's also played the Incredible Hulk in many Marvel movies and TV shows. Mark, to prepare for this interview, I watched a lot of your films and I watched this trio of films that you did which are all based on historical events. There's actually some sort of similarity between them. This is Zodiac, Foxcatcher, and Spotlight. And I read that for two of those movies, the people you were portraying were still alive and you got to spend time with them, got to know them. And this was Dave Toskey, who was one of the detectives investigating the Zodiac killings.

And then for Spotlight, you spent time with one of the reporters who was investigating the sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, Mike Rezendes. So when you're portraying a historical figure, an actual person, how much of an effort do you make to try to be as much like them as possible? Let's stick with Mike Resendiz. Like how much time did you spend with him? Oh, days. And you know, we became friends. And I asked that 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. And he just became this invaluable reference for all of us. But I went to the Globe the first day. You know, I had my phone, camera, and my notepad. I just said, hey, I'd really just like to sit down and watch you work, and work the phones, and just watch you do what you do. If you don't mind, I'd like to shoot a little bit of it. He's like, okay. I'm not really used to that. I'm usually the one who's doing the questions and the recording, but yeah, okay. And it's funny because I know what this process is now.

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 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. After that, we usually have to have a drink with somebody, really for them to feel safe with you. That's what I found. After you have a drink with them, all of a sudden, you know, it's like, okay, we shared the wine, we broke the bread, let's, but we can be real.

Well, what were some of the mannerisms that you saw that you tried to emulate in your performance? Certain people have, you know, tension in their bodies in certain places or, and it makes them move a certain way. Mike had a sort of, like a tension in his solar plexus area and it's sort of, it's sort of like tilts his pelvis forward a little bit and it's just a subtle thing. forward a little bit. And it's just a subtle thing, but you know the physical work that I've learned how to do was, you know, 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. It's someone who's like protecting something and it makes you walk a certain way. 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. But I also found when you start doing that, there's an inner quality that starts to come into view. 05.00 Well, I think that's really interesting. 05.00

Okay, good. I mean, sometimes I start talking about this and people like literally glaze over. They're like, a pelvic, okay. 06.00 Mark, I wanted to ask you a little bit about your childhood. It sounds like your family moved around a bit, like you were born in Wisconsin, but then you spent some time in Virginia and then California, right? That's right. I think your family was Catholic, but it sounds like there were some active seekers of religion

in the household. Is that correct? Yes, it was a very interesting household, religiously speaking. My family was, you know, 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. And so I was introduced to all three. Pete Well, you actually were, you were saved by the televangelist Jimmy Swigert.

Was that first, like, was that on TV? Jimmy Swigert No, no, no. You know, there was a first assembly of God in Kenosha, Wisconsin at the time, and my grandmother's a member of it. And you know, these different evangelical preachers would, you know, sort of tour, and he was the star of that at that time. He was, you know, he was their, you know, Elvis the evangelical, and it was music. I mean, it was a pretty lively experience. 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. You know, like that's the original sin. And I'm like, oh, yeah, okay. Oh, yeah, makes sense to me. But I was like, yeah, I'll do whatever you want, grandma. So what was that like? Did everyone sort of line up or get like... Yeah, so they bring the kids down. Like, there's a special moment where 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. And it's gonna 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 the...

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 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. 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. No. And I just kind of went with it, you know? So you fell over too?

Yeah. And it was horrible. Hey, did you feel bad? Do you feel like you were kind of, 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's 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's really good you know she's like did you feel I was like yeah yeah I felt it yeah and man I mean what that sets up in you at so early an age is so difficult for your relationship, you know,

your ongoing relationship 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, you know, just a shameful feeling. If you're just joining us, our guest is actor Mark Ruffalo. We'll be back after a short break. This is Fresh Air. Do you make resolutions in January? We do.

Specifically, we make pop culture resolutions. We also check in on what we resolved to do this last year. Did we catch up on all those classic movies or finally write that novel? Find out on the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast from NPR. This is Fresh Air. Our guest is actor Mark Ruffalo, who was nominated for an Oscar for best supporting actor

in the film Poor Things. So how did you get into acting? Is that something you felt good at right away? Did it come easy naturally to you? No, no, I sucked. I wanted to be an actor from very early on. I just didn't know what acting really was. I had already found myself performing. I found myself doing skits from The Three Stooges, doing slapstick, pretending I was Charlie Chaplin. skits from the Three Stooges, doing slapstick, pretending I was Charlie Chaplin. I was doing all that. But there was no culture for that in my family. We were house painters, 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 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 ten girls and two guys and

you know I was like why am I not doing that wrestling and so I um and I went in there and I was just 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 the 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 came to me and said I want you to replace Scott and I said you do 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. So it was like that feedback that you got from? Yes, that relationship, you know, it was like, it was, it was just magical because not only did I get to laugh, but I knew, I knew the laugh was coming. 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. I said, Mrs. Curtis, yes, Mark, do you think it's too late for me to become an actor? I mean, I'm already 18. Just like, no, Mark, I don't think it's too late. Yes, I think you can come and have her. That sounds like a very vulnerable moment for you.

Oh, it's horrible. I mean, I was a jock. I was a surfer. I was a skater. I was in a punk band. You know, like I was as much a dude as you could possibly be. But I also just had this, you know, this other thing that I wanted to try. Yeah. At some point you decided to make a go of it, right? Like you must have been getting some encouragement from her and then from other people to sort of get you to take a chance and to move to LA eventually. Well, my family moved to San Diego the day after I graduated from high school and you know I all my friends had 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. 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. Was Stella Adler teaching there when you were there? Yeah, yeah, she was there. But you know, I had the good fortune of walking in the school. And there's 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 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 and was like, oh my God, I'll never be that guy. And yeah, it took me a long time. And a lot of auditions before I started to figure out what I was doing. If you're just joining us, we're speaking with actor Mark Ruffalo. More after a break, this is Fresh Air.

This is Fresh Air. Our guest is actor Mark Ruffalo, who was nominated for an Oscar for his performance in the movie Poor Things. So you know, your big break was the 2000 Kenneth Lonergan movie, You Can Count On Me, which I watched again this week. It's such a terrific movie. You play Terry, you've got a sister, Sammy, who's played by Laura Linney, and you guys were orphaned early in life, your parents die in a car crash.

So what did you think of this character when you read the script? Like, he's often a jerk, but he's also like a pretty good guy and, and tries to do the right thing a lot. And it's just been damaged by this awful tragedy when he was a kid. 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, you know, because of financial reasons and the way movies are made, he was, you know, he was dead set on getting a star to do it. And I wasn't that. But I just was so moved by it. And I felt I got to play this. There's no one else. So you begged to get the role, huh? Is that what you said?

Basically, I mean, Kenny was like, I can't use you. 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. We're like, I'm a good friend. And he's like, fine, just don't sink your manager on me. And I was like, fine, I won't. But he said, OK, the casting's closed.

We're going to go to another actor on Monday. 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 I was, man, I knew I had to be better than 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. He was unhappy about that. Yeah, it wasn't like, it wasn't happy about that. Yeah, it wasn't like, it wasn't joy. It was like, all right, let's read the next one. And I did that and I was like, oh, that was really good. You'd be really good in this part. And slowly but surely I won him over.

Well, he made a good decision casting you. Thank God. Great performance. Oh, I don't know what would have happened to me if I didn't get that role. Was it like, this is your big break and, you know, you start getting asked to do a lot of roles, but then like everything just, you have to go on haul. You've talked about this a bunch, but you were diagnosed with a brain tumor, which turned out to be benign. You had to have this operation.

You had to deal with all these side effects. You had to do all this rehabilitation. I mean, fortunately, you were able to really get through it, but it took a while. And like, it just must have been, I mean, obviously it's a terrible thing to happen in your life, but just in terms of your career, like that must have been so discouraging

because like here you are just breaking out and then your body just shuts it all down. Like did that experience make you forever like suspicious of success? Like you might be good now, but you don't know what's coming around the corner. Oh, for sure. I, you know, I, to this day,

I'm still like waiting for the piano to fall. But that was particularly difficult because, you know, I was just starting a family. You know, I just bought a house based on this next big job that was coming, which was with M. Night Shyamalan and Signs, co-starring with Mel Gibson. I mean, it was, it was just like this explosion from that movie, and I was the hot guy, and it was all before me. 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. And if I, and whatever feeling I had about God at that moment, let me tell you, we had a talking to. 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. Yeah, well, I was actually really interested in that particular aspect of this because, like, as we said, you know, there's some spiritual searchers in your family, right? Like, your grandmother became an evangelist after being Catholic, your father joined the Baha'i religion. Like, did this experience sort of alter the way you thought about spirituality or like even the soul or identity? Matthew 18

When it all comes crashing down around you, you sort of, you just become a believer for a moment, you know? Like, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, don't let the plane crash, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please,

please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please,, you know, I was like, this can't be happening.

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.

I went through that experience, which made me grateful. It made me compassionate. It made me aware of loss. It made me aware of 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. Hey, dude, if you're really there, please don't leave my son fatherless. Just take my left ear. Cool? Yeah. Just take my left ear. Cool? You gotta be careful what deals you make. Yeah.

That's what I learned. Well, it's been a real pleasure speaking with you. Mark Ruffalo, thanks so much for coming on the show. Thanks, Sam. It was a great interview. It was really, really a great interview. I appreciate it. Mark Ruffalo spoke with our producer, Sam Brigger in February. Our holiday week series, featuring a few of the 2024 interviews we particularly enjoyed, continues tomorrow with actor Sterling K. Brown.

He was nominated for an Oscar this year for his supporting role in the film, American Fiction. He's also known for his roles in the series This Is Us, The People versus O.J. Simpson, and for the film Black Panther. But he started out as an economics major at Stanford and he interned at the Fed. I hope you'll join us.

To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director is Audrey Bentham. Our engineer today is Adam Stanaszewski. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne Rae Boldenado, Sam Brigger, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Challener, Susan Yakundi, and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly C.V. Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. Our co-host is Tanya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross. All of us at Fresh Air wish you a

happy, fulfilling and healthy 2025.