What doesn't kill Mark Ruffalo makes him stronger

Mark Ruffalo:I haven’t, honestly I haven’t gotten a lot of these kinds of thing. I don’t know if they just don’t think of me for them. For me, a big part of it was knowing Brian. I've known Brian for seven years and the true story aspect of it makes it completely different. I mean in my memory I can't remember a lot of films that are quite like this that deal with drug addiction and crime and then just rising out of it in a really kind of honest way. It either glorifies it or it just gets so sappy with the 12 step stuff that it becomes like a preachy kind of thing. I just felt like this told that story really simply in kind of a '70s sort of nod to that time period of making films. It's a simple story that had some guts in it. It had some moving stuff, family, redemption and all these interesting elements. I just thought I knew Brian and if I could play him it’d be a pretty great and interesting role. 

Crave Online: How did you approach that specific Boston accent?

Mark Ruffalo: Well, I kept saying to Brian, "Brian man, I need to get a Boston. I need an accent coach." And he’s like, "No, you don’t. No. None of that sh*t, no, no. The Boston accent, if you hear it in a movie, it’s too much, right?" He just hated it and he really doesn’t like it in movies and he was very, very adamantly very opposed to it. What I did is I actually video taped about a 30-second clip of him speaking and then memorized that and got all the sounds pretty close to that, and I would just keep referencing back to that. Then he would come up to me like, "Dude, that sound, that word’s not like that at all." And then the other thing you want to do is kind of get this tough guy, clenched fists. He's like, "Don’t. Don’t do that." But he would catch me and give me adjustments along the way, but I was just playing him really. 

Crave Online:How important to you as an actor is the technical stuff, the accent or that kind of thing?

Mark Ruffalo:Well, as you can see, I like to hide and so for me it’s just a way to hide behind the character more. And it’s fun. I like it. It’s what makes you a character actor kind of.

Crave Online: What kind of research did you do for the drug use in the film?

Mark Ruffalo:  I went out and got like an eight ball...  No, I’ll never forget when I showed up there and one of the guys was like, "Hey Mark!" And I was like, "Yeah?" And he's like, "Let’s go hit some crack houses. I know a couple." [This was] one of the actors in the movie, right? And I was like, "Yes, let’s do that," and he's like, "Seriously?" Addiction, I have a saying, either you are one or you love one. I’m not. I don’t have that gene or whatever, but I have a lot of people in my life that do unfortunately. I've seen people doing it. I know people that I'm very close to who are in the clutches of that. Part of probably why this movie meant so much to me was to be able to tell that story in a way that there was some like rising above it. And then Brian just like sat me down with like a couple of Altoids and we chopped those babies up, threw them in the pipe and he showed what it looked like. He showed me and it was interesting to watch because he hasn’t visited that world in many, many years. He became almost physically ill. That scene when he finds me, he was ruined. He couldn't even call a cut. It was a very intense day.

Crave Online: How tough was it dealing with Brian when you're portraying him at his worst?

Mark Ruffalo:You know, there were moments. There was another moment I think was very cathartic for him. He's writing it, he’s doing those things. I think he started to write it out of making amends, like taking account of his life. So he’s writing it, but the day when we’re there and is ex is there, his real ex is on set and his kids are there and the scene’s playing out in front of them, it just knocked him down. He got it. I mean he got it from her point of view and like I said, there was a phone call where I'm like, "Leave me the f*ck alone!" He couldn’t call a cut and he was back there weeping. It was really personal and intense and it takes an enormous amount of courage to be that honest with yourself and then with the world about yourself. Like that's a real reckoning and I don’t think you can do it without doing that in a way. He’s kind of a hero to me because very few people that I know can be that honest about themselves and their shortcomings. So I just felt deeply responsible to go to those places honestly and tell those stories. All that said, there's a lot of love there and Ethan and I, it was a very, very special shoot and I don’t know if it translates or not but it was just one of those very, very special movies for the people involved. You felt the gravity of it but you were also being buoyed by the healing nature of it too. That's what kept us from just falling into the abyss. 

Crave Online: What do you think you have in common with the character Brian?

Mark Ruffalo: Probably my love for my kids. Not his relationship to his wife or his mom or his family, it was his love for his boys that I think was what's pulled him through in the end. I come from a blue-collar family in Kenosha, Wisconsin. My family were immigrants. I have a lot of those same [ties], not as deep as Brian was but I know the world very well. This is the Italian version of it, but I know that world very well. It's a world where you're either a plumber or you're a tradesman or you're a criminal, and all of them are equally respected. Being a smalltime criminal, that's like a trade, and there's that certain like code of ethics that go around that thing. So that's probably as close as I got to him. I'm fortunately not an addict. I didn't get in to a life of crime and I found acting early and we're actors.  Brian would say, "I always see your pain. I know that you've felt pain in your life and that's why you could play this part." Because I’d say to him repeatedly like, "Dude, I can't play this. You've got the wrong guy, man. I can't. I don’t think I could pull it off, I really don't." because it’s tough, a f*cking tough dude.

Crave Online: On the other hand are their roles where you're like yes, I got this? 

Mark Ruffalo: There's things that I feel are closer to me. I'm trying to think. All of them are like there's some little, tiny aspect of yourself in all these parts I think. It’s just like pulling them out. Everyone has, I think, almost every experience in them, a lost love, all the basic things we all know from living our lives. As an actor you just learn to stretch those and put your imagination behind them.

Crave Online: Which is the part that you used for Brothers Bloom? 

Mark Ruffalo: The conman actor, coming and selling my sh*t to people who are a little dubious about it, probably.

Crave Online: When you do a tough movie like this, do you bring them home with you when you're in the middle of it or can you just turn it off at the end of the day?

Mark Ruffalo:I'm getting better at like just letting it go but yeah, my wife’s like she'll see me and she's like, "Oh my god, you've changed. You're different again.'" Or she thinks I've changed. I don't think I have and she's like, "The way you walk, the way you're talking and your rhythms." I mean you go into that world and it like sticks with you a little bit. I’m still myself in my world, but I might be preoccupied with it.

Crave Online: Did you bring Dave Toschi home?

Mark Ruffalo:A little bit. I don’t feel it but my wife says that I do. Your focus becomes that world so you sort of start to think about it. You're thinking about it, you're in it all the time and always working on it. It’s probably no different than a guy who’s building some mid-century modern place. It’s like if you're working on a piece of literature or reportage where you're focused on that. You sort of carry it around with you a little bit. I don't think it’s any different really.

Crave Online: So what role are you bringing home to your wife next? 

Mark Ruffalo:The director. I'm directing a movie now so she gets to just see all my just crazy neurosis when I've totally freaked out. I don't know what I'm doing, which is really not different than acting really. So that's my next role, trying on the director’s hat. It's called Sympathy for Delicious and it’s a really quirky kind of social satire about a guy in a wheelchair who gets the gift to heal but he can't heal himself, so he starts Healapaloosa and basically, it’s just a big f*ck you to God and religion and all this stuff. And then it comes around to an interesting and nice ending.

Crave Online: Does he learn something?

Mark Ruffalo: He has one of those small movements that he does one act of compassion that's completely selfless, one little, tiny thing. Yes, and that's it. He does learn a little something. 

Crave Online: Are you going to be in that are you only directing?

Mark Ruffalo: I'm going to be in it too. play a Jesuit Priest who’s a homeless activist.

Crave Online: Are you doing a film with Noah Baumbach. Is that true, is that happening?

Mark Ruffalo: No, I think that's actually going to be another actor now. Yes, they couldn't get it made with me. My movies don’t make any money. It’s strictly an economic issue. Maybe I have bad days though. 

Crave Online: Do you ever say to yourself, "Well, I should just take a big action movie so I can get some name recognition?"

Mark Ruffalo: Sometimes I do but then I'm like, "If I suck in it…" I guess I'm waiting for that part where I like really like it. I just haven’t found that thing where I'm like, "Oh god, I really want to do this. I have to do this.' I mean, I've done the romantic comedies. I was kind of hoping Zodiac would be like the thinking man’s version of a blockbuster.

Crave Online: What do you think happened, why did that not quite hit?

Mark Ruffalo: Because it started f*cking with the genre. It’s a serial killer movie where you don’t catch the serial killer. People don’t know what to make of that. A lot of people, they only get frustrated by it. Like, "That movie was frustrating. I can't recommend that. They don’t catch the guy!" I don’t know, some people say it was too long. I also think it’s like the time. I mean it's a depressing time. We're in the middle of a seven-year war. I just think it’s a time when people don’t want to be faced with that kind of stuff. There's a lot of like cultural things in that movie too. It says a lot about our culture and where it’s got to. But I know I made a damn good movie. Like in ten years that movie will still be around. It’s funny. You hear like Raging Bull was a flop, but that movie endures. Maybe when I get older I’ll do a bunch of comedies that riff on characters that I did. I’ll do like a Dave Toschi comedy and then I’ll make a bunch of money and I’ll open a hotel.