Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. Mark Ruffalo is unquestionably one of our best working actors. It's not opinion at this point, it's a fact. Whether he's flexing his muscles in a metaphorical sense in films like Infinitely Polar Bear or Spotlight or in a literal sense in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, he's always, always, always a joy to watch on screen.
I have been lucky enough to see him work (on a lengthy Brothers Bloom set visit, which we do talk about in the below chat) and in my very brief personal interactions with him I can say he's a top notch dude as well as a great actor.
It's no surprise that Ruffalo was nominated for a Golden Globe, but it is surprising that his smaller movie, Infinitely Polar Bear, got the recognition instead of the higher profile Spotlight. I adore this film and am psyched it's getting the recognition.
That nomination is what got Mr. Ruffalo on the phone with yours truly (as well as the pending January 5th Blu-Ray and Digital HD release), so below we talk a little bit about his role as producer, tackling a bi-polar character and yes, we talk about what's next for the big Green dude. And just one more thing before we start... Yes, Det. Columbo comes up.
Quint: Hey, how's it going, Mark?
Mark Ruffalo: Good, Eric. How're you doing?
Quint: I'm doing great, man. Getting ready for the holidays. How about you?
Mark Ruffalo: I hear ya'. I'm getting ready for the holidays, too. I'm stoked! I'm so glad they're here.
Quint: This is my last work thing I'm doing before relaxing for the rest of the year. I'm hoping it's the same for you.
Mark Ruffalo: Yeah, me too. You're the last interview of the year.
Quint: So, it's up to me to end it on a sour note is what you're saying.
Mark Ruffalo: (laughs) Please do!
Quint: I don't know if you'll remember, but I hung out with in Serbia, of all places. Rian Johnson had me out to visit you guys for a few days while you were making Brothers Bloom.
Mark Ruffalo: Oh, yeah, man! I do! I do. Who else was there with you?
Quint: Joe Gordon-Levitt was visiting the same time I was.
Mark Ruffalo: Yeah! That was fun, wasn't it? We went to that Serbian restaurant that served nothing but pork, remember that?
Quint: I do.
Mark Ruffalo: That was a fun night. Well, good to talk to you again!
Quint: I'm a real big fan of Brothers Bloom. I love how it turned out.
Mark Ruffalo: Me, too, man. What the hell? I don't see why that movie doesn't have a bigger following or didn't do better than it did.
Quint: I have a feeling now that Rian's doing that little space movie that a lot of people might be going back and looking at some of his earlier stuff.
Mark Ruffalo: Yeah, I have a feeling it'll be re-appreciated. That'll include me, too!
Quint: You need to tell him to get you fitted for some Jedi robes!
Mark Ruffalo: I asked him. When I heard he got it I was like, “Rian. We worked together, remember?”
Quint: “I'm just sayin', I'd make a pretty bad-ass bounty hunter...”
Mark Ruffalo: I'd be a good rogue bounty hunter...
Quint: He's the real deal, man. I can't wait to see what he does with a big, big movie.
Mark Ruffalo: Yeah, he is. I'm sure he'll do his own thing with Star Wars.
Quint: Me, too, which is why I'm really excited for his movie. But we should probably talk a little bit about Infinitely Polar Bear since that's what we're here to talk about. I saw the movie at Sundance when it premiered. I was a big fan of it then and I revisited last night and I gotta say, it hit me even harder the second time.
Mark Ruffalo: That's good news!
Quint: It really did. A lot of it rests on your shoulders. Cam is such a great character. I love the duality to him and that really stood out on the second viewing to me. He's the best parent and he's the worst parent. He's the grown up and he's the child.
Mark Ruffalo: Yes!
Quint: I really loved that about the character and was wondering if that was what made you want to be a part of this project.
Mark Ruffalo: Absolutely. As an actor I get to do it all and I get to do it in a really open, free way. You can play a part like this as a maniac, as the bad guy of the movie, and chew the scenery and do all the theatrics and so on and so forth, but in this setting with this guy there was so much more behind it. There was humor. And the reality of knowing you were playing someone real was a dream come true for me as an actor. Being the child and the maniac, being the father and the kid, to be sick and to be healthy... all of those dichotomies playing against each other. Wow, what a great part.
Quint: I like that there's so much gray area, too. It's not like when he's on his medication that life's suddenly great. He's not just being stubborn about not taking his meds. When he's on it he's a shell of himself, but he also needs to be levelized. I love that there's not a direct solution to everybody's problems.
Mark Ruffalo: No, that's like life, man. There's a constant dialogue. For people like that there's no magic cure. It just becomes about maintenance, really, and living with this dialogue about illness. The people that I know that (are bi-polar), that's a constant thing for them. It's a lifestyle.
Quint: That also carries through with the relationship side of the film. It's not a rom-com where two people separate and come back together. Cam and Maggie have ups and downs. They kind of get back together, but not really. At least in my experience, that's really true to real-life troubled relationships.
Mark Ruffalo: That's more life! You have your shitty moments and you have some moments that are great. You don't think any of them is an asshole. You love them and you kind of love them together, too, but you also understand why it's impossible at the end.
There's so much humanity in the movie. That's what I was really drawn to. I was like, “God, I have to do this movie. I don't care how I do it or how little money we'll have to make it.” I just had to do this movie because this was life as I know it. Not my life, but the way she portrays it felt really real. No one's an asshole. No one's entirely bad, no one's entirely good. They're all doing the best they can under the circumstances.
Quint: It's gotta be good for you, too, looking back on it now. I can only imagine the early days when you just had a script and conversations with Maya... you must have had faith, but you never know if everything will gel and come together at the end. It sounds like it was such a passion project for everybody you must have had a moment of relief when you actually watched it all cut together and you see how good the kids are and see how it all came together in an emotional, but not sappy way. That's kind of what I love about the movie. It's not sappy, but it's highly emotional.
Mark Ruffalo: I couldn't have said it better.
Quint: See, I'm already doing your part of your last interview of the year for you! I'm doing well!
Mark Ruffalo: You're killing it! You don't even need me! (laughs) But yeah, that's exactly what we wanted. The fact that you're saying that without being prompted... that's exactly what you want to hear from somebody out of the blue.
Quint: It's not hard to relate to this film. Everybody's had experiences with bi-polar people even if they don't have it themselves.
Mark Ruffalo: I say you either are one or you love one. At some point or another. They're everywhere. I heard a statistic that 9% or 6%, I don't remember which, of people are bi-polar. That means we all know one or have known one.
Quint: I'd like to talk a little bit about your roll as a producer on this film. I'd guess that your success in bigger franchise pictures helps these smaller films get made. Is that how you ended up producing this film? You found something you really liked... Listen, you're in one of the highest grossing movies of all time. I'm sure that helps with the financing side of it.
Mark Ruffalo: Yes, that helps. Yeah, I read it and I had already produced stuff, my movie (Sympathy For Delicious), and I wanted to branch out into that. Maya was pretty green and honestly our producers were a little green as well. When I came on I actually wasn't in one of the highest grossing movies. I was doing well, but I wasn't The Hulk yet. But yeah, these kinds of movies need all the help they can get. That was part of the reason I signed on as producer. I wanted to look out for it as Maya was walking through that world of getting her first film made.
Quint: Does being a producer and having that extra responsibility alter how you approach a movie as opposed to being someone hired on? Or is it pretty much the same?
Mark Ruffalo: No, you have more responsibility. You're more involved. Mostly Maya would come to me and ask me about producorial things. On this movie it was much less the creative stuff I was worried about, other than stuff like the cut of the movie, but I really didn't even have much of an involvement in that. I trusted Maya and Wally (Wolodarsky) with what they were doing there.
My stuff was more like “When are we going to release it? How are we going to release it? Who's going to take it out? What is your shooting budget? How many days are they giving you? How much money do you have? Maybe spend some of the money here...” It was much more on the day to day particulars that a first time director doesn't really understand completely. Because I had been through that process myself and had worked on so many movie sets I had a better idea than a lot of people. For this movie most of my involvement was more on the producorial side.
Quint: It all seemed to come together. It definitely doesn't feel like the kind of movie where you watch it and go, “Man, they really needed another week of shooting.”
Mark Ruffalo: Yeah, I know. We had 23 days. We were freaking jamming on this movie!
Quint: Wow, 23 days? And so much of it involves the kids, too. Sometimes that can...
Mark Ruffalo: Oh, it kills you! That could really slow you down. It was a gutsy thing to try and pull off, that's for sure. It had the recipe for disaster, you know? Bi-polar dad... actor playing a bi-polar person. We've seen that and that can be disastrous. And then kids and 23 days... God, we probably made it for $3.7 million. It had all the makings of a disaster.
Quint: But it all came together! Movie magic!
Mark Ruffalo: It came together, man! We got a nomination and we didn't have to suck up or anything!
Quint: Before I let you go I want to bring up a couple of things. One of my favorite things the internet has ever done was fan-cast you in a Columbo reboot.
Mark Ruffalo: (laughs) Thank you.
Quint: I know Gary Whitta made a strong case on Twitter a while back, so I wanted to check in and see if there has been any movement on that actually becoming a reality.
Mark Ruffalo: It's funny. Ed Soloman had pitched me the idea before Gary had. We were sort of thinking about how to do it. The studio didn't really bite. They didn't care, then Gary started the Twitter thing, which is amazing. Who knows what the future's going to bring? I love that show. I love Peter Falk. I think I understand why they'd pair us up together. It would be a lot of fun. It'd be interesting to see how to crack it. I mean, it is one of those things that could go wildly off the tracks, you know?
Quint: I'm a big Peter Falk fan, too. One of my all time favorite movies of his is this kind of little-seen film called Murder By Death, which was pretty much Clue before Clue came out.
Mark Ruffalo: Yes! It's amazing! Did you ever see Mikey and Nicky?
Quint: Of course! With John Cassavetes.
Mark Ruffalo: Elaine May directed it and John Cassavetes is in it. They're so good in it! Peter Falk's amazing. He's one of my heroes. I love him. We look a little similar. He looks exactly like my dad. I'm really honored, but I don't know what's going to happen with that. Like I said, the studio wasn't interested when Ed approached them.
Quint: Whether you guys fuck it up or not, you'd still have one ass in a seat, at least. Tell that to the studio big-wigs!
Mark Ruffalo: (laughs) Alright, that might be worth it.
Quint: I have to bring up The Hulk. I know Marvel's got snipers everywhere, so you can't say anything about the new stuff, but it's now known that Hulk's coming back in the new Thor movie. Last we saw of him, his biggest fear, of losing control, had happened and it kinda messed him up. I imagine we'll be getting more of him dealing with that in the next film, but is that where your brain is at the moment with the character?
Mark Ruffalo: He's on the run. I think that we carry that through. It's not just a matter of taking himself to some remote place and hiding. Now he's removing himself from humanity altogether. I'm not sure where we're going to head with that, but I'm sure that's probably still very much alive within him.
It's very subtle, but the Banner/Hulk consciousness is beginning to meld a little bit. Who decided to leave? Was it Banner or Hulk? It's not really in the (cinematic) mythology of Hulk up until that moment to be that conscious and pro-active. It's interesting, right?
Quint: It's very interesting and I think having the two brains move closer together gives you a lot of meat to sink your teeth into with the character. I think that sounds like a lot of fun.
Mark Ruffalo: Yeah, I think it is. I think it's really exciting where we could go with it. Now I feel like we're kind of in No Man's Land. I mean, the comic books have kind of broached the subject, but we're moving away from the traditional Hulk/Banner relationship. We're starting to mess with it a little bit.
Quint: We've never seen it on screen before, for sure. Not with the TV series or any of the movies.
Mark Ruffalo: No. Now we're going to see how far we can push the limits of it before people get sick of it!
Quint: Cool, thanks very much for your time. I hope Rian lets you slip on some Jedi robes here in the next year or so!
Mark Ruffalo: Yeah, man. Me too!
Quint: At least a Stormtrooper!
Mark Ruffalo: I can at least pull of a Stormtrooper! Alright, brother. Have a good one. Happy holidays!
There you have it. Very interesting stuff regarding The Hulk, no? It seems they're moving towards a Grey Hulk kind of combo of personalities to me, but I'm no expert. What do you guys think?
Happy holidays! Be cool to each other and have a happy new year!
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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