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