The movie that stopped Mark Ruffalo from quitting acting: “This is going to be my last gig”
Sometimes all you need is a taste of something different to get your creative spark back. When working on back-to-back projects, the process of filmmaking and hierarchy of Hollywood can become almost suffocating, leaving you feeling burnt out and exhausted after months of production, promotion and press tours. While you might be living the high life, it’s certainly not a lifestyle for anyone with a weak stomach, with plenty of downsides that can leave you feeling drained and depleted.
While some seem to have an almost unhealthy level of stamina, with the likes of Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman almost constantly working on increasingly demanding projects, for others, life can get in the way and make this working pattern nearly impossible, something that Mark Ruffalo described his difficulties with after a particularly fraught period of his personal life.
Ruffalo has had a colourful career (to say the least), making his beginnings on the stage and shortly moving to the glitz and glamour of screen acting, becoming a heartthrob of the rom-com genre through roles in 13 Going on 30, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Just Like Heaven, as well as starring in tonally polar opposite productions like Zodiac, Shutter Island and reprising the role of The Hulk in the Marvel Universe.
However, with a filmography as stacked as Ruffalo’s, sometimes the jam-packed nature of the business can become far too overwhelming, with the actor debating quitting the industry after the tragic death of his brother, a decision that was thwarted after spontaneously joining the cast of a rather unexpectedly joyful project.
During 2010, queer couples were very rarely depicted in mainstream cinema, with the subject of gay rights still being a very contentious and highly debated issue in the United States. However, conversations around this began to shift after the release of Lisa Cholodenko’s film The Kids Are Alright, which was one of the very few times in which a lesbian couple was at the centre of a Hollywood production.
Starring alongside Annette Bening and Julianne Moore as the couple’s sperm donor, Ruffalo played the man caught in the middle, with the actor describing how the role helped him reconnect with his love for acting. “My brother passed away just before I was going to direct a film that I’d been working on for a long time, and during the course of doing that, I was like, ‘I don’t know if I want to go back to acting. I kind of feel much more comfortable here.’”
“And then I got a great part, the kind of part that I wanted to do, and I was like, ‘This is going to be my last acting gig.’ And it was The Kids Are All Right. I was just like, ‘Fuck it. I’m going to do whatever I want. There’s no rules anymore. I don’t have to be anybody for anybody else.’ And so I just did what I wanted with it, and it was a really freeing feeling”. Sometimes all we need is the right story to piece us back together, and for Ruffalo, The Kids Are Alright came at the perfect time, encouraging him to keep going and not yet turn his back on acting.
