Mark Ruffalo has earned a reputation as one of Hollywood's genuine good guys. The Wisconsin-native
is as humble a movie star as you're likely to meet, but life hasn't always been as kind
to him as he is to others. In fact, given everything he's been through, it's a wonder
that he isn't a total jerk. Today, the affable Avenger is enjoying the heights of his fruitful
career, but before he played the Hulk in Hollywood's biggest franchise, he had to first experience
the lowest of lows. From crippling poverty and illness to several brushes with death,
this is the tragic - but ultimately triumphant - real-life story of Mark Ruffalo.
His family went bankrupt
He might be able to pull off playing a scientific genius in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but
Ruffalo didn't exactly shine academically as a child. When he sat down for an interview
with Men's Journal, the former C-student told them that he believes he suffered from undiagnosed
dyslexia for years, but he dug in and finished high school anyway. After graduation, his
family uprooted and moved to what the profile described as a "seedy beach community" in
San Diego - and things didn't exactly work out with that move, either. He explained:
"Within six months, we went from normal to bankrupt and eliminated as a family."
His dad, Frank, packed his bags and moved back to Wisconsin, leaving his four kids and
wife Marie behind. Ruffalo had excelled as a wrestler in school, but despite being told
that he had a shot at a scholarship, he decided to pursue a career as an actor instead. He
moved into a $600-a-month apartment with two friends and his kid brother Scott. Ruffalo
recalled of that era: "He'd make a f***ing giant bowl of tuna pasta, and we'd eat off
that all week long. The best of times, the worst of times."
He battled real-life anger issues
At first glance, Mark Ruffalo wouldn't appear to be a natural fit for the part part of the
ever-agitated Hulk. Nick Fury actor Samuel L. Jackson called him a "cuddly little bear"
and revealed that "everyone loves hugging on Mark" on the set of the Marvel movies.
But, believe it or not, he used to be a lot more like his big green alter-ego.
"Now might be a good time for you to get angry."
"That's my secret, Captain. I'm always angry."
Ruffalo told the New York Daily News: "You should have seen me in my 20s, man. I was
the poster definition of an angry young man with a persecution complex … I was struggling
as a young actor, suffering through imagined or real slights from other people's hands.
So it wasn't too hard to revisit those places."
Ruffalo spent so long dealing with professional rejection that he started to bring his anger
home with him. He remembered:
" … there was a time if you came into my apartment, there were pictures and posters
hanging in very odd places where they were covering fist-holes through walls. Glasses
that had been thrown through, coffee mugs, books, whatever I could get a hold of."
He suffered from anxiety
The three-time Academy Award nominee told Rolling Stone in 2015 that he eventually reached
a point where he was struggling to sleep because his brain wouldn't "shut off" at night. Luckily,
an old friend recommended that he try meditation, and it changed his life.
Ruffalo told Rolling Stone: "I had a friend who had been a longtime drug addict. He did
the [meditation] program, and we hooked up again after a couple years … He had been
the angriest man in the world, and he had such a calm demeanor. I had never seen a human
being change that much."
The actor sought out his own meditation teacher to see if it would work for him in the same
way, and the results were astonishing:
"It's pretty much a daily practice that quiets your brain and oddly enough, actually slows
down time, so you're not so much trapped in your immediate reactions to things. And everything
changed. My work started to change, my luck started to change. The way the world looked
to me changed."
According to the actor, practicing meditation gave him, quote, an "enormous amount of hope"
that everything was going to be okay.
He had a brain tumor
Ruffalo's big break came at the turn of the millennium when he was cast in the critically
acclaimed drama You Can Count on Me, the success of which led to a role alongside the legendary
Robert Redford in 2001's The Last Castle. He told Men's Journal: "It was big-time. There
I was with one of my heroes, Robert Redford, doing this walk-and-talk. ... This is my wildest
dream come true!'… And then I found out I had my brain tumor."
"You have a mass behind your left ear the size of a golf ball. And we don't know what
it is yet."
Ruffalo was informed that he had an acoustic neuroma behind his left ear and would need
surgery to have it removed as soon as possible. Surgeons informed him that there was an 80
percent chance he would lose his hearing, and a 20 percent chance his facial nerves
would be permanently damaged.
"Honestly, I thought I was gonna die."
While the star came out of surgery alive and well, it wasn't without its complications.
Ruffalo told The Acoustic Neuroma Association:
"My father told me that my heart had stopped briefly on the operating table, so that was
scary to me."
Thankfully, his heart started beating again, but despite the removal of the benign growth,
his battle was just beginning.
"They told me the surgery went well, they got all the tumor, they preserved my nerve
… but I just heard a ringing in my left ear."
Half of his face was paralyzed
When that ringing faded, Ruffalo realized that he'd lost all hearing in his left ear.
Worse still …
"I woke up after that, and my face was paralyzed and I couldn't close my eye."
He told the Telegraph in 2011: "I was like that for about 10 months and the likelihood
of it ever getting better looked pretty remote. The chances of the nerves coming back diminish
each month and month seven was pretty much the cut-off point. But finally the paralysis
did start to go. In all, I disappeared for a year."
In that time, Ruffalo kept quiet about why he'd dropped off the map, but that didn't
stop people from guessing.
"There were all kinds of rumors about what had happened to me. Drugs, alcoholism, AIDS.
Whatever the truth, I was damaged goods. I mean, no one is going to hire an actor with
half a paralyzed face."
Fortunately, his facial nerves eventually recovered and he fought his way back into
the spotlight. In 2011, he got his first Oscar nod for his performance in The Kids Are Alright.
Did somebody take his brother's life?
In December 2008, the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office ruled that Ruffalo's younger brother
Scott was offed. When paramedics arrived at the 39-year-old hairdresser's Beverly Hills
condo, they found him with a gunshot wound to the side of the head. He was rushed to
the hospital and managed to hang onto life for a week, but, when it became clear that
he wasn't going to recover, his life support was switched off, devastating his family.
The two other people present at Scott's home that night were arrested but told authorities
that Scott inflicted the wound on himself during a game of Russian roulette.
Ruffalo was set to star in Noah Baumbach's Greenberg at the time, but he dropped out
of the indie flick to grieve. Not for the first time in his career, losing a role because
of a tragedy turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as when Ruffalo returned to the
fold he gained a part in what would become the highest-grossing Hollywood franchise of
all time, the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He told In New York, "My friends have a term,
getting 'Ruffaloed.'"…
"'Ruffaloed' is when you have what seems to be bad luck that actually turns into good
luck later."
Not that he wouldn't change things if he could.
He told Men's Journal: "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. You get calloused, a little bit harder maybe,
so be on guard for that. But take these tragic things and turn them into something meaningful
and worthy of the loss. Make it count. From here on out, do the best you can to make it
count."
He was accused of terrorism… or was he?
In 2010, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Pennsylvania's Office of Homeland Security
had placed the Oscar-nominated actor on the terror watch list after he publicly discussed
his concerns over natural gas drilling in the United States.
"They're ready to drill ASAP. And that's the drinking water of ten million people."
Ruffalo was an ardent supporter of Gasland, a Sundance Special Jury Prize-winning fracking
documentary. He helped organize screenings of the film in an effort to raise awareness
of fracking's potentially disastrous effects on the environment and those living near the
drill sites. This apparently made him a threat to security, which he found "pretty f***ing
funny" at first. As the story gained traction, however, he was forced to start taking it
seriously. He sat down with The Telegraph to set the record straight, telling them it
was all bogus:
"Somehow this story came out about my being on this terrorist list. Fox News picked it
up and bundled it together with my brother's murder to make it sound as ominous as possible.
Then every news organization in the country ran it without bothering to check if it was
true. It wasn't until The Washington Times finally nailed the story that it went away."
As annoying as that must've been, at least it brought a lot more coverage to Gasland,
right? Talk about getting Ruffaloed.
Thanks for watching!
Click the Nicki Swift icon to subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Plus check out all this cool stuff we know you'll love, too!