Mark Ruffalo | The Actor's Side

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Transcript
00:00 (typewriter ding)
00:02 I did a play in New York and they saw that I knew
00:05 how to be on a stage, you know?
00:07 And they're like, "Where did you come from?"
00:09 Here in LA, they're like, "Where did you come from?"
00:12 I was like, "I've been under your nose for the last 13 years
00:15 doing the same work, just you won't come to the theater
00:19 in LA because you think it's stigmatized."
00:21 But it's not, it was beautiful.
00:22 (upbeat music)
00:27 - Understand me never lived outside God's house.
00:30 - What?
00:31 - So Bella's so much to discover.
00:32 And your sad face makes me discover angry feelings for you.
00:38 - Right.
00:41 Become the very thing I hate,
00:45 grasping succubus of a lover.
00:47 Tried many of them off me and now I'm it.
00:52 Fuck.
00:53 (upbeat music)
00:55 (upbeat music)
00:58 (upbeat music)
01:00 (upbeat music)
01:03 (upbeat music)
01:06 (upbeat music)
01:08 (upbeat music)
01:11 (upbeat music)
01:17 (upbeat music)
01:24 (upbeat music)
01:30 (upbeat music)
01:36 (upbeat music)
01:39 (upbeat music)
01:44 - You like me are a creature of freedom in the moment.
02:06 - What you keep doing that for?
02:09 - A man over there repeated blinks at me.
02:12 I blink back for polite I think.
02:15 (upbeat music)
02:17 - Welcome to the actor's side today.
02:28 Actually, he is sort of an EGOT winner.
02:32 Grammy's, Tony's, Oscars, Emmy's, nominations.
02:37 Which is a unique achievement unto itself.
02:41 This is Mark Ruffalo, hi.
02:43 - Hey Peter, good to see you.
02:44 - I noticed that it said EGOT and I'm going like, okay.
02:48 It's close.
02:49 - Almost.
02:50 It's EGOT light.
02:52 - That's it, but it's impressive across the board,
02:56 even in the Grammy's.
02:57 - I had no, my wife is the one who's like,
03:00 do you realize that you're like one of only a very few
03:03 actors who's actually been nominated for all of the--
03:07 - All of them?
03:07 - Yeah.
03:08 - Yeah.
03:09 - Yeah, I was like, no, I didn't realize that.
03:11 Yeah, the Grammy's was a, that was a surprise
03:14 'cause it was, you know, it was Bernie Sanders' book
03:18 that came out.
03:19 - And you did the spoken word for it.
03:20 - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
03:21 (laughing)
03:22 So.
03:23 - That's great.
03:24 - That was amazing, yeah.
03:25 - And of course, Tony nomination on Broadway
03:28 for Awake and Sing, I believe.
03:29 - That's right, yeah.
03:30 - And Emmy winner, obviously.
03:33 - Yeah.
03:34 - And now a four time Oscar nominee.
03:38 How does that feel alone?
03:39 I mean, you know.
03:40 - I mean, that's incredible.
03:42 If that, if it ends right there, it would be a career
03:48 that I'd only had dreamt of, really, you know.
03:52 - Yeah, that's right.
03:53 And they're all different, you know,
03:54 all of the nominations that you've had,
03:57 all of these movies that you do too.
03:58 Kids Are Alright, which is a movie I just love.
04:01 So great, and you were so great in that.
04:03 And Foxcatcher, obviously, playing the wrestler,
04:05 Dwight Schultz, and Spotlight, that picture winner.
04:09 - Yeah.
04:10 - And now Poor Things.
04:11 I have to say, I'm not always surprised
04:15 by actors and their choices,
04:17 but I've never seen you do a movie like that.
04:19 - I'm surprised.
04:20 (laughing)
04:22 I never have, I never have done anything like this.
04:24 And honestly, when it came to me,
04:27 I was kind of in shock a little bit.
04:32 I wondered, is this the right part?
04:37 And am I the right guy?
04:39 Did they send me the wrong sides?
04:43 (laughing)
04:45 - By the way, that's where this show,
04:46 I gave it its name because of actor's sides,
04:49 that you, you have sides.
04:50 - Oh yeah, that, yeah.
04:51 - So we just took off the S,
04:53 - Yeah.
04:54 - And call it the actor's side.
04:55 - Yeah, it's so good.
04:56 (laughing)
04:56 - Because that's it, man.
04:57 That's our lives, you know?
04:58 - I know, it's right.
05:00 - It's really clever, yeah.
05:02 Yeah, that's cool, I didn't know that.
05:04 - Yeah, that's so funny.
05:05 Well, you know, so you have a little trepidation
05:08 going into this role, like a lot of actors do.
05:11 I don't call it insecurity, just like, can I do this?
05:15 Are they going to fire me a week later?
05:18 Or all of that, does that ever go through your head?
05:21 - On every single thing.
05:22 You could call it insecurity as well.
05:26 My agents jokingly call me Mark Waffalo.
05:30 (laughing)
05:32 Because I'll get, you know, even this,
05:35 I was telling everyone, I was like,
05:38 I don't think I could do this.
05:40 And even Yorgos, I wanted to work with him.
05:45 He's one of the great auteurs.
05:48 And I reached out to work with him,
05:51 and then he sends me this, and I said,
05:54 Yorgos, I don't know if I'm the right guy for this.
05:57 And he just went, (laughing)
06:00 it's you.
06:01 - He just knew.
06:04 - Yeah, in a way--
06:04 - What had him see you in that made him think
06:06 you could go off the deep end here?
06:09 - You know, it's funny, it was things
06:12 that aren't really germane to this.
06:16 It was Foxcatcher, it was I Know This Much Is True,
06:20 which is a television--
06:22 - Which you won an Emmy for, obviously.
06:23 - Yes, yes, yes.
06:24 - Playing the twins.
06:25 - And yeah, he saw those, but I don't know
06:30 where the comedy came from.
06:34 No, and You Can Count On Me.
06:36 - Oh, yeah.
06:37 - And he said, I thought you could do the comedy
06:39 because I saw you do it so well in You Can Count On Me.
06:42 (laughing)
06:43 - Okay.
06:44 - Yeah, which I was like, okay.
06:47 (laughing)
06:48 There wasn't a lot of funny bits in that,
06:51 but it was such a gift.
06:55 I mean, obviously, it's such a great part
06:58 and it's such a stretch.
07:00 And I got to do stuff that I haven't done
07:02 since I was probably a kid on a 30-seat stage here in LA
07:07 back in the late '80s and early '90s.
07:11 - Where you go wild and you do all--
07:13 - Yeah, we would do everything.
07:15 We'd do farce, we would clown.
07:18 It was a much lower stakes proposition
07:23 than doing a movie, so we could experiment
07:25 and do really fun stuff.
07:27 And my friends who knew me from that time
07:28 was like, thank God, it was so good to see you do something
07:32 that was so reminiscent of our time
07:34 starting up here in LA together.
07:36 - Tell me about that when you started.
07:38 You started, how did you get into acting
07:40 through these small theaters?
07:42 - Yeah, man, I came out to LA.
07:44 I studied at Stella Adler here in LA.
07:48 No, on Hollywood Boulevard.
07:49 She was here half the year.
07:51 And then I had another woman, Joanne Linville.
07:53 You might know her.
07:54 She was a great television actress.
07:57 She was my teacher and she brought me up
08:00 and she taught me so much.
08:02 And in the school, we started our own little theater company
08:07 and we were on the school stage on the weekends.
08:11 And then we got our own little theater
08:13 on Santa Monica Boulevard.
08:16 We were all in this little 30 seat house.
08:19 We paid like $2,000 a month.
08:21 We'd all pitch in, we built our sets,
08:23 we did the costumes.
08:25 It was like this wonderful exploratory time.
08:30 We did 30 plays during that 12 years.
08:34 And I really, we got to play all the great parts
08:38 and we could do a $5,000 production here.
08:43 So in a way, and at that time,
08:45 there was a vibrant theater,
08:47 experimental theater scene in here in LA.
08:49 And we--
08:50 - You know, never, people don't look at LA as a big town.
08:51 - Never, never.
08:53 I mean, you couldn't have that on your resume here in LA
08:56 or they'd be like, what a loser.
08:58 (laughing)
08:59 You know?
09:00 - But it's funny, I've gone into those theaters
09:02 and I have like friends like Frances Fisher,
09:05 who will just go when she's not off
09:07 shooting a movie or something.
09:09 I started doing a one woman show in a like,
09:11 it's like a closet.
09:12 - Yeah.
09:13 - You know?
09:14 - Yeah.
09:15 It was a magical time.
09:16 And when I went to New York,
09:18 I did a play in New York and they saw that
09:21 I knew how to be on a stage, you know?
09:24 And they're like, where did you come from?
09:27 Here in LA, they're like, where did you come from?
09:29 I was like, I've been under your nose for the last 13 years
09:32 doing the same work.
09:34 Just you won't come to the theater in LA
09:36 because you think it's stigmatized, but it's not.
09:38 It was beautiful.
09:39 - Is it hard to get casting directors into those shows?
09:42 (laughing)
09:44 - Do you know how many trees I'm responsible for killing?
09:49 Needlessly by handing out flyers to people in Los Angeles
09:55 to come and see my play.
09:57 - Oh my God.
09:58 - I mean, it was so hard.
10:00 'Cause the other stigma was,
10:03 if you were doing a play in Los Angeles,
10:06 it was just a showcase for you
10:11 to have casting directors and movie people to see you.
10:15 So it wasn't taken seriously in that sense.
10:20 But there was very, very serious theater happening here.
10:23 And I know that 'cause I went to New York
10:26 and saw what was happening there.
10:27 And what was happening here was just as good, if not better,
10:30 and more creative and imaginative and freer
10:34 because it was cheap.
10:36 It didn't cost you the same.
10:38 It didn't cost you $100,000, $200,000
10:40 to do some little black box thing.
10:43 - Yeah, well that's so cool
10:45 because you then went to New York.
10:47 You went off Broadway with Ken Lonergan's, yeah.
10:51 - This is Our Youth.
10:52 - That was great.
10:53 So--
10:54 - It was everything.
10:55 - Yeah, right.
10:55 - It was spectacular.
10:57 It changed everything for me.
10:59 Like I said, they were all there.
11:00 All of the casting directors,
11:02 go, leave LA, go to New York to watch the play.
11:07 - Yes.
11:08 - That is like hilarious.
11:09 - Yes.
11:10 It was amazing.
11:11 That was just a magical time
11:13 because I'd been grinding it out here in LA.
11:16 You know, hundreds upon hundreds of auditions,
11:18 just really wasn't getting anywhere.
11:21 I met Kenny doing a one-act version of
11:24 This is Our Youth here in LA.
11:28 And I went to New York, got cast in the, you know,
11:32 the full-length production,
11:35 and it just became this huge off-Broadway hit.
11:38 And everyone was there.
11:40 - That's so great.
11:41 - And Kevin Huvane, who runs CAA,
11:44 his mom saw it and she called him and she said,
11:47 "You better get your butt out here.
11:49 "There's a young actor here that I want you to see,
11:53 "that you should see."
11:54 And he came and then I was signed up with CAA
11:57 very shortly after that.
11:58 - Boom.
11:59 And then You Can Count on Me,
12:01 which was Ken Lonergan's movie with Laura Linney,
12:04 fantastic film, he was the brother.
12:06 - Amazing, another gift.
12:08 - All of that is that due to theater.
12:10 - Yeah, it all came out of that.
12:11 And Kenny and I were these theater rats
12:14 that were trying to start film careers,
12:17 but had spent, you know, the last 15 years
12:20 or, you know, 10, 12 years
12:21 in these little off-Broadway theater scene.
12:25 And we both kind of came up together, you know?
12:28 - Which is great, look at you now.
12:30 - I know.
12:30 And he was still, he was gonna,
12:32 yeah, I got my star yesterday on the Hollywood Boulevard
12:35 and he was gonna be there,
12:36 but he got sick so he couldn't come.
12:38 - Oh no.
12:39 (laughs)
12:39 - Yeah.
12:40 - Congratulations, a rain stop for you.
12:42 - Yeah, it was amazing.
12:43 (laughs)
12:43 And then it started right after it,
12:45 it was pretty amazing.
12:46 - How does that feel, having a star there,
12:48 considering you worked in all these little theaters
12:51 and things around Los Angeles and Hollywood
12:54 and now you're on the sidewalk?
12:56 - You know, it's the kind of thing where,
12:59 in our business, it could be seen as a little bit,
13:03 oh yeah, yeah, you know, it's a publicity stunt or whatever.
13:08 But it was very moving, it was very special
13:12 because the truth of the matter is,
13:14 is when I came to LA at 18 years old,
13:16 the first place I came was Hollywood Boulevard.
13:19 Stella Adler School was on Hollywood Boulevard.
13:22 - Right.
13:24 - I spent seven years on that boulevard.
13:27 - Wow.
13:28 - When it was a war zone, you know?
13:32 When it was the very dark side of Hollywood
13:36 where people, the wreck of Hollywood was at, you know?
13:41 And just to come full circle after almost 40 years
13:47 and to have my star touching Stella Adler's star.
13:52 - Oh, it's wow.
13:53 - Right in front of the school.
13:55 - Oh my God.
13:56 - Was so moving, and all my pals are there.
13:59 All my pals are teaching at the Stella Adler now, you know?
14:03 So it was like, it was just very special.
14:06 - That's the best star story I've heard
14:08 since Carol Burnett got hers in front of the theater
14:10 she used to be a movie usher at on Hollywood Boulevard.
14:13 - I didn't know that.
14:14 - She grew up in Hollywood and so she wanted that.
14:16 - I loved her.
14:17 - To go right back to the beginnings of a career
14:20 and go like, look.
14:21 - That's what it was like.
14:23 - It's pretty cool.
14:24 - I heard Stella Adler also infused in you
14:27 that a good actor is also a good activist.
14:29 - That's right.
14:30 - And I thought, I never heard that before
14:32 from an acting standpoint.
14:34 I thought that was really,
14:34 'cause you're an amazing activist.
14:36 - Thank you.
14:37 - That comes out of acting too.
14:39 - Yeah, absolutely.
14:40 I mean, you know, it was the ethos that,
14:44 well, first of all, she came from the Yiddish theater.
14:47 She came, you know, her family were immigrants
14:51 that were running away from fascism.
14:54 They started the Yiddish theater in New York.
14:57 That was the Jewish intelligentsia.
15:02 You know, they were the people who were pushing unions,
15:05 for pushing equality.
15:07 They were what would be considered
15:09 the progressive movement now, you know?
15:11 And so she was very politically active
15:14 and her family was very politically active
15:16 and she was part of the group theater,
15:17 which was very politically active.
15:20 And so we were part of that tradition, you know?
15:24 And that was important to her.
15:27 And she, you know, part of your responsibility as an actor
15:30 was knowing the political scene
15:32 of the people you were playing and the time period
15:36 and the struggle of those people.
15:38 And it was always about really the humanity.
15:42 And, you know, I don't know if it's activism or what,
15:45 but I just, that's always stayed alive in me.
15:48 And it's always really been about, you know,
15:50 the betterment of our common humanity.
15:53 - It is, and you put it also in movies.
15:55 Like, I know I talked to you
15:57 at the time "Dark Waters" came out,
15:59 and which was an amazing movie.
16:01 I wish more people had seen.
16:02 - Yeah, thank you.
16:03 - You know, it's an important film too.
16:05 - Thank you.
16:06 - And you also were a producer on that.
16:07 - That's right.
16:08 - To get these things made.
16:09 - Yeah, yeah, I optioned that with "Participant"
16:13 and we developed it together.
16:15 And yeah, at that point, we'd done "Spotlight."
16:19 You know, "The Kids Are Alright"
16:20 also had a kind of a social impact.
16:23 And I started to see, well, you know,
16:25 I could bring this more into,
16:27 more intentionally into what I'm doing
16:30 and meld the two of them.
16:32 And so "Dark Waters" became the first sort of
16:35 attempt at that.
16:38 - Well, you know, you see a movie like that
16:41 'cause sometimes you see it on the news
16:43 and all this stuff going on, you know,
16:44 paid that much attention, but what "Dupont" did
16:46 and all of that, and that came out in that movie.
16:49 - Yeah, now, I mean, the first time in 30,
16:52 they've known, I mean, the EPA's known for 40 years.
16:55 Now, for the first time, knowing that it killed people,
17:01 knowing that it made people sick,
17:03 knowing that it was everywhere,
17:05 knowing that it actually concentrates in our body,
17:09 we can't get rid of it, now finally,
17:13 because of that movie, the EPA is actually gonna set
17:16 regulations that will make our water safe.
17:19 - Wow, that, see, that's a--
17:21 - That's the power of this.
17:23 - Well, that's the power of movies.
17:24 - Yes, that's the power of movies.
17:27 You know, maybe 5% of the people read an article,
17:30 20% of the people will watch a documentary,
17:33 and 60, 70% of the people will watch a movie.
17:36 And it transcends the politics, you know?
17:38 Like we, you tell stories about real human people
17:41 struggling, and they look like us,
17:43 and they sound like us, and we're, people are decent,
17:46 you know, they care, and when they see other human people
17:50 that they're struggling, that they know,
17:52 and they have sympathy towards,
17:56 then you could change people's minds.
17:58 I don't know, you could do it any other way.
18:00 - No, you did that with Spotlight, too, I mean--
18:02 - Yeah, that changed, I mean, look.
18:05 (laughing)
18:06 - Had a huge impact.
18:06 - Huge impact.
18:07 - Yeah, it's remarkable.
18:08 - If it works, it's amazing.
18:10 It doesn't always work.
18:11 - What are things gonna do to people?
18:12 (laughing)
18:14 - Liberate them!
18:15 (laughing)
18:17 - It's so amazing to see you and Emma in that,
18:20 and just going for it, and I can't,
18:24 did you have rehearsal time to really get into this, or?
18:27 - We had three weeks of rehearsal.
18:30 - That's a lot.
18:31 - We didn't talk about the script once.
18:33 - Really?
18:34 - We didn't talk about the character.
18:36 We maybe read, at the end of the day,
18:41 we'd take 15, 20 minutes to read a few, like 10 pages.
18:45 Yorgos didn't give us any notes.
18:48 We just did theater games, made fools of ourselves
18:52 in front of each other, danced, sang.
18:56 Yeah, and that became this freedom that you see
19:00 in the movie, that's expressed in the movie,
19:02 this kind of daring, this kind of freedom,
19:04 this very physical, alive quality.
19:09 - It's a lot of physical comedy.
19:11 - Yes, that came from all the play that we did.
19:14 - Yeah.
19:14 (laughing)
19:15 It's so funny, and the dancing.
19:17 I mean, you know, you're a dancer,
19:19 ready to go on dancing stars.
19:20 - No, Yorgo said to me last week,
19:21 he's like, "You're a terrible dancer."
19:23 (laughing)
19:24 But that's why you're so good.
19:26 (laughing)
19:28 - It was so funny, you know, it's just, I don't know,
19:30 there was something about it just makes me laugh
19:32 every time I even see clips now.
19:34 - It's so ridiculous, it's like, everything about him
19:38 that is so ridiculous is in that dance, you know?
19:41 - And so, yeah, he's such an interesting character
19:43 'cause he slowly loses control over her,
19:46 which he just can't stand.
19:48 - And he loses control over himself, too.
19:49 - Exactly, which is, you know, that's saying something,
19:52 too, right there about the positions of men and women
19:56 and who we are.
19:57 - And the power dynamics.
19:58 - Power dynamics.
19:59 - And where the power actually is,
20:01 if it's actually exercised, you know?
20:04 - How much do we love Emma Stone?
20:06 - Worship Emma.
20:07 I love her so much.
20:09 She's such a great talent and just an amazingly
20:14 lovely human being and we, I mean, we had to,
20:18 we have a lot to do in that thing.
20:22 And I just, I couldn't have been with a better partner
20:27 in so many ways, just her daring, her imagination,
20:32 her sense of humor, her commitment, her playfulness,
20:37 her strength, it just, yeah, there's no way.
20:42 There's no other way, no other person
20:45 that I could have been done with but her.
20:48 - Were you surprised you're getting all this awards
20:50 recognition for it?
20:51 I mean, not just the Oscars, but the Golden Globes,
20:53 Critics' Choice, you've been nominated consistently
20:55 here this year.
20:56 Comedy doesn't always get recognized.
20:59 - No, in this movie?
21:00 I mean, this is out there, you know?
21:04 And I knew it was good and when we were making it,
21:09 I was like, this is something really special.
21:12 But I didn't know if it would have the crossover
21:15 potential that it's had 'cause it's such a strange world
21:19 and it's racy and it's, you know?
21:23 But maybe it is, I think in a lot of ways,
21:25 the comedy sort of, you know, George Bernard Shaw said,
21:28 "You have to get the audience laughing long enough
21:31 "to get their mouths open to shove the medicine
21:33 "down their throats."
21:33 - Right, yeah.
21:35 - And I do think that this movie opens people up in ways
21:39 because of the comedy that they might not come to this movie
21:42 in any other way.
21:43 - You say George Bernard Shaw because I kept thinking
21:45 when I'm watching it, this is a twisted Pygmalion
21:48 in its own way.
21:50 - Interesting.
21:50 - They're taking this woman who's, you know,
21:53 like got the mind of a five-year-old, but you know,
21:56 and basically it's men manipulating her.
21:59 - Right.
22:00 - Until--
22:01 - Until she gets agency.
22:03 - Exactly.
22:05 I know there's a little bit of that in this.
22:06 - Oh, huge.
22:08 It's very Pygmalion.
22:10 - I know, it's so cool, it's so cool.
22:12 Just before we go, I have to say,
22:15 are you going to be doing "The Hulk" anytime in the future
22:18 or is that over?
22:19 I mean, 12 years or however long you've been doing--
22:22 - Yeah, it's been 12 years.
22:23 - That's amazing.
22:24 - It's amazing.
22:25 - And I don't know, you know,
22:28 there's always some talk of it,
22:30 but nothing's sort of substantiated yet.
22:33 And listen, I've gotten to do so many great things in that,
22:38 you know, and play so many different, I mean,
22:43 Bruce Banner's never really stayed the same
22:46 from the beginning to the end.
22:48 And neither is "The Hulk."
22:49 And, you know, I would love to take a crack
22:53 at a standalone movie,
22:54 although I don't see that in the cards ever.
22:56 But I also, you know, I'd be happy to go back there
23:01 if they want me.
23:03 - Well, I think Marvel needs you.
23:04 The MCU is calling, you know.
23:07 - I see the big M on the side of a building.
23:10 (laughing)
23:12 - I'd love to see a standalone movie.
23:13 Look, they've had Hulk movies.
23:15 - Yeah, I know, that's part of the problem.
23:17 - I know, you know, but when you took it over,
23:19 and these other actors are great actors.
23:21 - They're great.
23:22 - You brought something different to it.
23:25 - And that was Whedon, too.
23:26 I mean, that was Joss.
23:28 He really, 'cause I was hemming and hawing.
23:30 I was like, guys, this has already been done
23:33 by really great actors.
23:35 You know, do people wanna watch a character
23:38 who literally doesn't want to do the very thing
23:42 they want him to do and mope around about it, you know?
23:46 And Joss was like, no, man, I have a different take on it.
23:51 And I think it could be funny,
23:52 and I think we could play with all that.
23:55 And he sent me 20 pages surreptitiously.
24:00 The studio wasn't allowing people to read anything.
24:05 And he slid me over that first scene,
24:07 that entry scene with Scarlett.
24:09 And I was like, I could do something with this.
24:14 (laughing)
24:15 - You never know where the next great role's gonna come from.
24:17 - You never do.
24:19 You never do.
24:20 - So, well, you certainly have one now with "Poor Things."
24:22 - Thanks.
24:23 - So many things that you've done now.
24:25 Thanks for joining us.
24:26 - Thanks, Peter.
24:27 So honored to be here.
24:28 (upbeat music)
24:31 you