Hulk Actor Mark Ruffalo Was Scorned By Studios Before He Joined The Avengers

Mark Ruffalo's film debut came in 1994, when he appeared as a seductive and possibly supernatural super-hunk named Christian who periodically appears to Tracy Wells in the horror sequel "Mirror Mirror II: Raven Dance." The producers, likely pleased with his performance also hired Ruffalo to play a brand-new role in "Mirror Mirror III: The Voyeur." In that film, he played a sexy moving truck worker named Joey. Ruffalo did not appear in "Mirror Mirror 4: Reflections."

Despite starring in the "Mirror Mirror" movies, as well as the gore flick "The Dentist," Ruffalo had a pretty varied early career. He appeared in the '60s-set coming-of-age drama "There Goes My Baby" in 1994, the indie comedy "Safe Men" in 1998, and the Oscar Bait biopic "54" that same year. He worked with Ang Lee in 1999's "Ride with the Devil," but exploded into the pop consciousness with his memorable performance in Kenneth Lonergan's 2000 drama "You Can Count on Me." He was even in terse military thrillers like "The Last Castle" and "Windtalkers." Ruffalo, it seems, was eager to stay away from any single type of movie. 

After a while, though, it seemed that Ruffalo fell into a groove. It wasn't something he intended, but for a brief spell in the early 2000s, Ruffalo was one of the go-to Hollywood rom-com supporting players. This, as he might have predicted, pigeonholed Ruffalo into a weird Hollywood dead zone for a lot of casting directors. If he was only capable of rom-coms, Hollywood wouldn't have much reason to care. Ruffalo's fears were confirmed by a conversation he had with his manager, related in a recent interview with High Snobiety Magazine. It seems that someone literally said they don't care about Mark Ruffalo. 

Ruffalo wasn't seeking out romantic comedies when he received the script for one of his more popular pre-Marvel movies, "13 Going on 30." It seems that his wife, Sunrise Coigney, whom he married in 2000, was the one to encourage him to try out a love story. His doubts were assuaged by a few words from the film's director. Ruffalo said: 

"I never saw myself in a rom com. It was really Sunrise. She was like 'You need to do a rom com. You're actually funny and I think you're hot, and they're asking you to do one.' This director Gary Winnick — who I knew from the scene in New York — came to me with the script [for '13 Going on 30'] and said 'It's a rom-com, but let's approach it like we're making an important indie movie with a message.' We really talked about what that script was about, and the message that we wanted to give; an important message about innocence, about how you treat people. It was just very elevated." 

The film may be frothy and light and funny, but Ruffalo liked that it had some adult underpinnings. "13 Going on 30" was, however, a pretty big hit, making almost $97 million on a $37 million budget. Because it attracted so many eyeballs, Ruffalo was soon given more scripts for rom-coms ... and became increasingly disliked by the Hollywood establishment in the process. He was a soulful, indie-style actor in mainstream pop flicks. He was hardly a leading man, and the studios wanted nothing to do with him. 

Ruffalo admitted that appearing in comedies like "Just Like Heaven" and "View from the Top" was "a rebellion" of everything he had done before. It was a mere taste of the mainstream. 

Ruffalo, though, knew almost immediately that he had been typecast. Luckily, he was wise enough to know that it was happening, and that he had the leeway to refuse certain gigs. Ruffalo said: 

"What I felt immediately in the film world is, once you did one thing well, that's what they think you are. They will just come to you with that part over and over again. And I was like, 'No.' My career is not going to be that. I'm going to do as much as I can to try and make people see me in different ways so that I can do more over the years."

And it worked, despite everything. Getting a call from director Joss Whedon to play the Incredible Hulk in the ultra-blockbuster "The Avengers" was a bolt from the blue. He accepted because, well, a gigantic, effects-based action blockbuster wasn't on his résumé." I had never done that," he mused. He continued: 

"Studios, they weren't coming to me in that way. I'll never forget when they were negotiating my deal [for 'Zodiac'], the studio negotiator literally said to my manager, 'Look, we don't give a s*** about Mark Ruffalo, we don't even want Mark Ruffalo in this movie, so you're going to take what we're offering you or forget it.'"

Luckily, Ruffalo took the job in David Fincher's 2007 crime epic, and further cemented his Hollywood presence as a versatile actor, as well as a performer with a good eye toward successful, amazing movies. 

And when he became involved with "The Avengers," it only continued his upward trajectory. Ruffalo was able to bring a certain degree of sensitivity to Bruce Banner, the man who turns into a green-skinned bodybuilder when he gets angry. He was equally capable, however, of donning the motion-capture wetsuit and wearing CGI-tracking dots on his face for his performance. He also found an eerie parallel between the Hulk and his own career arc of someone being pigeonholed. Ruffalo said:

"The fact that Joss Whedon came to me for the Hulk was so out of the blue. It's a tough part; how do you get away with playing a character that doesn't want to do what everybody wants him to do and sustain that? It's like a trap. I read it and I was like, 'I can do something with this.'" 

How on Earth would Ruffalo have known what it was like to be surrounded by co-workers who constantly wanted him to do one thing, and he desperately wanted to do the opposite? In that case, the Hulk is a metaphor for "13 Going on 30." The Hulk was the constant allure of the mainstream rom-coms that Ruffalo was good at playing, but didn't want to keep falling back into. Ruffalo would continue to play the Hulk for years, most recently appearing in 2022's "She-Hulk: Attorney at Law." By then, the Hulk character no longer transformed, and remained in his Hulk form permanently ... but while retaining his intellect. 

That's his secret: he's always romantic.