His career is filled with award winners and massive blockbusters, but Mark Ruffalo has also endured terrifying health scares, tragic deaths, and a little bit of scandal.
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00His career is filled with award winners and massive blockbusters, but Mark Ruffalo has
00:05also endured terrifying health scares, tragic deaths, and a little bit of scandal.
00:12Mark Ruffalo was born and raised in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and his early years were full of
00:16much more upheaval than his laid-back attitude might suggest. As he explained to Parade in
00:212004,
00:22For a long time, I felt like someone had it in for me. With every new adversity, I protested,
00:27almost to God. How much more of this do I have to take?
00:31Ruffalo's father, Frank, owned a construction painting business, which meant that he was
00:34away a lot while his son was growing up. When the younger Ruffalo turned 13, the business
00:39went bust, and the family was forced to move to Virginia Beach, where another business
00:44venture also didn't work out.
00:46Even as Mark became popular at school and excelled in sports, particularly wrestling,
00:51he still struggled. As he recalled,
00:53I was miserable. This sounds sappy, but I was always aware of the frailty of human beings,
00:59the sorrow in the nature of things. I didn't know how to live in the world, how to cope.
01:04I felt like I didn't belong.
01:06Ruffalo and his family eventually headed to San Diego, and financial hardships took a
01:10toll that led to his parents' divorce, making for a childhood that was full of anger and
01:15resentment.
01:17In Mark Ruffalo's younger days, he struggled with undiagnosed dyslexia, ADHD, and depression,
01:23which he talked about in a 2017 video for the Child Mind Institute. As he admitted,
01:28One of the things that was very difficult for me was grade school, feeling strange and
01:32unique and freakish. I would say to my younger self then that there's help, and there are
01:38ways to deal with it and manage it and to overcome it.
01:41I didn't feel like I fit in anywhere.
01:43Ruffalo has since become an outspoken proponent for raising awareness for these issues. In
01:48a 2015 interview with Vanity Fair, he talked about how there really is no normal, nor should
01:53there be. He also revealed that all three of his children have also been diagnosed with
01:57dyslexia and how it's important to him that they grow up differently than he did. As he
02:01put it,
02:02The way we're dealing with it is to be upfront about it, accepting, and without shame. And
02:07those kids are prospering in that environment.
02:10Over the years, Ruffalo has been refreshingly candid about his own personal struggles. When
02:15he sat down to talk with The Observer in 2015, he got honest, in particular about his
02:20experiences with mental health. As he put it,
02:23People are so afraid of mental illness, but it's everywhere. I've been struggling with
02:27that my whole life. It's like a low-grade depression that just is running all the time
02:31in the background.
02:33This experience gave him some insight into the character he played in the movie Infinitely
02:37Polar Bear, a father who suddenly finds himself caring for his children full-time as his wife
02:42goes back to school. At the same time, he was trying to manage his own bipolar condition.
02:47Ruffalo has also revealed that he's dealt with members of his own family who had been
02:50diagnosed as manic-depressive after years of not having a name for what they were going
02:55through.
02:56What he had personally experienced was different, though. As he explained to Vanity Fair,
03:00I wish I was manic. I'm more just depressed. I don't get the fun part. So I really understood
03:05what it is to stand in front of the refrigerator with the door open and just sighing. That
03:10dead-end thing. I understood that."
03:13Ruffalo knew what his true calling in life was, but for a while, he struggled to realize
03:18it. As he admitted to Movie Maker magazine in 2004,
03:21"[My agent said to me, Mark, for the average actor, it takes 100 auditions to get a job.
03:26You've had 230, and you haven't booked a job."
03:29You gotta let me come in and audition for it, buddy. Please."
03:33By the time he did get hired, that number had skyrocketed to about 800. As it turns
03:39out, Ruffalo conjured the determination to persevere from a very dark place. During his
03:44many, many auditions, he was also getting some experience onstage in unpaid roles at
03:49various theaters. But then he had to face some tremendous loss, as his best friend Michael
03:54took his own life at the age of 26. As he recalled to Parade,
03:58"[Michael was my dearest friend. He was the only one I knew as sad as me, who I could
04:03talk to. When he died, it rocked me out of a dark depression. The moment he left, I realized
04:09that death wasn't an escape, that suicide wasn't an answer. I understood the value of
04:13life. Acting became my way of addressing it."
04:17In a 2014 interview with Reuters, Ruffalo spoke about how he prefers to stay away from
04:22ultra-violent roles. As he explained,
04:25"[The gunplay stuff just doesn't interest me. It is a fantasy in a really destructive
04:29way that is very sexist and macho, and so I never really found myself being interested
04:34in that. I have been a witness to what guns do to people in real life."
04:38Then in a 2017 interview with Men's Journal, Ruffalo talked about moving to Los Angeles,
04:44taking acting classes, and living with three other people in an apartment near MacArthur
04:48Park. As he recalled,
04:49"[It was the height of the crack wars. We'd go to the park in the morning and there would
04:53be bodies strewn out in the grass. It was so heavy."
04:57One time, when Ruffalo was bartending, he saw an off-duty police officer moonlighting
05:01as a bouncer shoot and kill someone brandishing a gun. And in another terrifying incident,
05:07a man was stabbed repeatedly on his front porch after trying to prevent some kids from
05:12breaking into his car.
05:13I love people, and I have a lot of compassion for the struggle of people."
05:21In an essay for the book No Better Friend, Celebrities and the Dogs They Love, Ruffalo
05:26recounted the story of an important furry friend in his life.
05:30The dog showed up at his door on Thanksgiving, bloody and dirty, with a cord wrapped around
05:35her neck. Ruffalo cut her free, gave her some water and his leftover meatloaf, and then
05:39he left for dinner with friends. When he returned, she was still there.
05:44Ruffalo then kept the pooch, and she even accompanied him on auditions. Her name was
05:48Frida, and she became his shadow and his best friend for the next seven years. But then
05:53tragedy struck. As he recalled,
05:56Then I lost her. A car ran her over. It took me a long time to get over it. I never even
06:00thought about getting another dog again. The loss was too painful."
06:04Technically, Ruffalo never did get another dog, as it was his wife who obtained their
06:09next pooch, who was named Frida No. 2. And she proved to be an important family member,
06:14as Ruffalo credits her for saving his young son when he was toddling towards a pond and
06:18she intervened, preventing an accident.
06:21It's easy to see how hundreds of auditions can become disheartening, and in fact, they
06:25did for Mark Ruffalo. As he recalled in an interview with Men's Journal, he'd given up
06:30and resigned himself to heading back to Wisconsin to take over the family painting business.
06:34But then a combination of factors, including his mother's insistence that he could make
06:39it as an actor, sent him back to California. He landed his big break, and then another
06:43film followed. Things were happening in his personal life as well, as he and his wife
06:48were getting ready to welcome their first child.
06:51Unfortunately, that's when life decided to throw him a curveball. Ruffalo had a dream
06:55that he'd developed a brain tumor, and it was so troubling that he ended up going to
06:59the doctor to have some tests done. It turned out that he did, in fact, have a brain tumor,
07:04and the surgery to remove it came with a high risk of facial paralysis. For weeks, Ruffalo
07:09bore this burden alone, as he didn't tell anyone about his diagnosis until after his
07:14son, Keane, was born.
07:16As he recalled,
07:17"'I was certain I was going to die. I made a tape for him, for when he was old enough
07:20to understand. Just saying, hey, this is who I am.'"
07:24"'You know, your priorities become very clear. My relationship to acting became very clear.'"
07:32When John Fetterman suffered a stroke during his 2022 Senate campaign to represent Pennsylvania,
07:38Ruffalo took to social media to share his support, as he tweeted,
07:41"'As someone who suffered a brain tumor and temporary cognitive dysfunction, I can relate
07:45to John. This is a minor thing that passes. These hard times just make us stronger, more
07:50compassionate people and better leaders.'"
07:53Ruffalo certainly had experience with a long recovery. His own surgery happened when his
07:57son was just three weeks old, and it left him with partial facial paralysis, as well
08:02as some scary temporary cognitive dysfunction. His balance and coordination were non-existent,
08:07and he once became hopelessly lost for hours, even though he was just a short distance from
08:12his apartment.
08:13As he recalled to Parade in 2004,
08:15"...Every day after I got home, I'd look in the mirror to see if my face was moving at
08:20all. It wasn't."
08:21It took months before Ruffalo started to see movement in his face, and more months on top
08:26of that before he regained full control over all of his facial muscles. One side effect
08:30seemed to be permanent, as he never regained hearing in his left ear.
08:34"...I'm fine now. I only lost my hearing, so…"
08:38Perhaps the only thing worse than losing a loved one to a senseless act of violence
08:43is having the case remain unsolved. In 2008, Ruffalo's brother, Scott, was shot and killed
08:49in his Los Angeles apartment. Although his death was officially ruled a homicide and
08:53several arrests were made, there was never a conviction. Mark was understandably devastated,
08:59telling The Telegraph in 2011,
09:00"...I'd always been close to my brother. Very close. There were, well, there were a lot
09:05of things I needed to work through."
09:08Mark Ruffalo was a hairdresser who was reportedly discovered by one of his clients. He was still
09:12alive at the time, having been shot once in the head and left with a gun in his hand.
09:17Law enforcement found it suspicious enough that a murder investigation was opened, and
09:21persons of interest were questioned. But then, with the death of a key witness, it seemed
09:26unlikely that the Ruffalo family would ever know the full truth.
09:29Mark eventually opened up about the guilt that he carried with him for a long time,
09:34telling Men's Journal in 2017,
09:36"...you always wonder, what could I have done differently? But there's also the healthier
09:40part that says, you integrate it, and you get on. You never get over it, you just get
09:45used to it."
09:47In 2010, Ruffalo founded a nonprofit that seemed to be on the cusp of doing some real
09:52good for the world. Water Defense had a noble mission, but in 2016, Huffington Post reported
09:58on some serious questions about the legitimacy of the science behind the group.
10:02Times started to crop up when Ruffalo, Water Defense, and Chief Technology Officer Scott
10:07Smith headed to Flint, Michigan. They claimed that, contrary to what residents were being
10:11told, the city's water wasn't safe for bathing and washing in. But there was a clear conflict
10:16of interest, as Smith earned royalties on the sale of materials used to create the testing
10:21devices.
10:22Meanwhile, Virginia Tech professor Mark Edwards, who had been instrumental in diagnosing the
10:27problems with Flint's water supply in the first place, wrote on his website,
10:31"...Ruffalo's absurd hypothesis that disinfectant byproducts in Flint could be coming from
10:36corroded lead or galvanized iron defies basic laws of physics and chemistry."
10:42Edwards condemned Ruffalo for spreading misinformation that was making people sick. The claims coincided
10:47with an increase in instances of gastrointestinal illness linked with a lack of hygiene. Smith
10:53later recanted his findings. Water Defense backed away from the whole thing, and ultimately,
10:58the charity quietly vanished.