“Well, that sucks”: the one director Mark Ruffalo is dying to work with wants nothing to do with him
Throughout his career, Mark Ruffalo has worked with some of the industry’s most esteemed directors, but if he believes what he’s been told, he’ll never get the chance to catch his white whale.
He can count Martin Scorsese, Yorgos Lanthimos, David Fincher, Michel Gondry, Ang Lee, Jane Campion, Rob Reiner, Michael Mann, and Bong Joon-ho among the filmmakers who’ve given him a job, but he was told in no uncertain terms that he’ll never be able to land the name at the very top of his wish list.
Since he’s one of the most inoffensive character actors and occasional leading men in Hollywood, unless you disagree with him politically, of course, and he’s spent decades carving out his reputation as a dependable presence who’s perfected the art of weathered, easy-going charm, what’s wrong with Ruffalo?
In a development that would make Scorsese rejoice, it was all Marvel’s fault. For the last decade and a half, the star has been a fixture of the studio’s cinematic universe as Bruce Banner, and his gigantic green alter ego, which has kept the financial gravy train rolling and allowed him to pursue other projects.
The Ruffalo who pops up in a superhero movie or TV show to get angry and let the CGI wizards take over is not the same Ruffalo who’s earned four Academy Award nominations for ‘Best Supporting Actor’, and it’s definitely not the same Ruffalo who shone in Poor Things, Foxcatcher, or The Normal Heart.
And yet, when he was having a conversation with an unnamed actor who’d been offered a role by Marvel, they outlined their concerns about how spandex and saving the world could negatively impact their career outside of the bubble, with the mysterious thespian asking Ruffalo, “Aren’t you worried no big directors are going to work with you?”
He answered in the negative, which is understandable, because being the resident Hulk since 2012 hasn’t stopped him from adding more big names to his directorial collection. However, the actor was insistent that he could “name a few who won’t work with you” because of his Marvel connections, and one of them hit Ruffalo like a tonne of bricks.
“Well, Paul Thomas Anderson won’t work with you,” he was informed, and the Avengers alum was shell-shocked. “I was like, ‘Oh, fuck’. If there’s one person I want to work with, it’s Paul Thomas Anderson. Well, that sucks.'” It certainly does, but is it true?
You could say yes, since Anderson has never hired Ruffalo for any of his features, but on the other hand, the recent ‘Best Director’ winner has defended Marvel from scorn and outed himself as a fan of the company’s movies. Benicio del Toro was in One Battle After Another, and he was in Guardians of the Galaxy, and so was Bradley Cooper, who was in Licorice Pizza, so there might be some hope yet.
