Welcome to the show.
-(cheering, whistling, applause) -So good to have you.
That's so nice.
This is... this is amazing.
They don't do that when I go home.
What are you... That would be creepy
if they just followed you home cheering
as you're just walking home.
-My kids! -Oh! Welcome to the show.
Thank you. It's great to be here.
I love you, man. I love you what you do.
Thank you very much. I love what you do.
I think your-your intellect, it's really great.
-No, this is about you, Mark, this is about you. -(laughter)
Welcome to the show, and, um, congratulations on everything.
I-I feel like, you know, you were always known,
because you're an amazing actor, but with
it's such a... it's such a monumental event,
like, life changes overnight.
Did it change even more when now you are, like, Intelligent Hulk?
'Cause before there was, like, no, because now there was, like,
there was, like, a shift-- there was Hulk,
and then there was, you know, Banner.
-Yeah. Yeah. -So you had the separation.
So Hulk was cool, and then you were, like, the scientist,
but there's Hulk, but then you because Intelligent Hulk,
and now it's, like, your face is on the Hulk.
Kids must have been, like, now you're like...
-Bulk. -You're... Bulk.
-Banner/Hulk. Yeah. Yeah. -Banner/Hulk.
Did you feel that change?
It was huge.
It was, uh...
(laughter)
It was smart and huge.
(laughter)
You are...
You-You've traveled all over the world now since then.
-You actually just got back from Tokyo. -(chuckles): Yes.
Do people recognize you in Japan as Hulk, as well?
Yes.
They yell, "Hulk! Hulk!"
-(laughs) -It's funny.
"Hulk" in-in Japanese is the same in English.
You don't think of that.
-No, it's not something you think. -Yeah, you don't.
-No. -That's-that's properly international.
-Yes. -(laughter)
No, I never thought of that.
I c... I crossed over.
Yeah, you have.
You should actually just be Hulk Ruffalo now.
You should just take that and act.
You should just take it as Hulk.
I walk down the street, and people are like,
"Yo, Hulk! Hulk! Yo, Hulk!"
(laughter)
And my son says, "Put your hood up."
(laughter and applause)
-Um... -"It's your hair.
You both have the same hair."
(laughter)
This movie, I feel like, is-is a departure for you,
but at the same time,
in many ways, it's the same thing.
You-You're playing a real-life hero
in this movie,
-Yeah. -You know, it's-it's a story of...
of a lawyer who really stumbles upon a story
of-of a chemical company
that's-that's polluting a piece of land,
that's killing people, killing livestock,
and it's just, like, one of the craziest stories.
What's even more crazy about it is that it's true.
How did you even stumble upon this?
Uh, it was actually a, um...
It was in The
uh, by Nathaniel Rich.
And it was a... it was the article called, um,
"The Lawyer That Became DuPont's Worst Nightmare."
-Right. -And, uh, I read it,
and I-I couldn't believe it.
It w... It was a horror,
and it was probably the biggest corporate crime and cover-up
in American history
that nobody knew about
with, uh, a lawyer
that had normally been, um,
someone who would, uh, defend chemical companies.
-Mm-hmm. -Uh, is...
Was now in the place of actually defending,
uh, this farmer that he knew growing up as a boy,
um, that, uh...
that insisted that his cows were being poisoned by DuPont.
It was really interesting to watch,
because, you know, you see this farmer
who doesn't know much about this fancy world,
but he reaches out to this "little boy"
who he knows is a lawyer and he says,
"Hey, my cows are dying.
"I think something is going wrong here.
Can you look into it?" And the lawyer discovers a world
that you s-- it's one of the most nefarious stories
-that ever happened in America. -Yeah.
But when you-- when you read through it
and, you know, when you-- when you created this film,
like, was there a part of you going,
"Although the story seems absurd,
it's-it's almost normal"?
Well, it-it... (sighs)
It-it felt like a-a story
that we keep hearing again and again...
(chuckles): where a corporation knows
that they're hurting, um, their clients,
-that they're hurting the public. -Right.
Um, their-their science shows them
that they're hurting the public
and they hide that science
and they keep hurting the public anyway,
whether we're talking about opioids,
whether we're talking about climate change,
whether we're talking about Monsanto
and-and glyphosate,
whether we're talking about, um, fracking
and what it does to water,
-it's the same story over and over again. -Right.
And I just saw it so beautifully told
with this amazing guy, Rob Bilott,
the guy I play.
Uh, and he's so humble.
And it's so well and thoroughly researched
that I thought, "Wow, this is..." (chuckles)
First of all, this is a freaking horror story,
-but it's real. -Right.
But it's also the story
of how some legacy corporations in America
are killing us,
destroying us.
Willfully.
They know they're doing that.
And they're doing it simply to make a buck.
And we see it happening
over and over and over again.
And now I think we're having a moment
-where we're talking about it. -Mm-hmm.
We know it's happening. We know it's happening.
Um, we see it all around us.
We-we have a distrust,
whether you're on one side of the aisle or the other,
it's-it's the same kind of discussion.
It's dis-distrust of this system
that is-is, um, using us,
uh, to just drain our pocketbooks
and... lead us to hospitals
where we have to pay for our own health care
-after they poisoned us. -(chuckling)
It-it-- Yeah.
(applause)
I mean...
It's a story that far too many people have had to live through
and are continuing to live through today,
you know, where corporations have found ways--
You saw-- In the clip we saw,
where-where the scientists now work for the corporations
and we don't know what many of the facts are.
From the story though, you know, you play a hero in the story
who-who really is, like, an on-the-ground hero
who just works against a powerful organization
to get justice for many of the people who have been harmed.
What do you think inspires heroes like this?
Because he didn't have much to gain.
In fact, he had everything to lose.
What makes... so you have the heroes in the super mo--
in the-- in Marvel movies... and they're the heroes--
You want, they're heroes because you want to be them, right?
-Right. -But then you have the heroes
in the world that are heroes because
-you don't want to be them. -Wow.
They're heroes because their journey
is the one that a human being has to make that is, like,
-the difficult choices. -Mm-hmm.
And... that's what this man was.
And I, what it ultimately was in him,
was a belief that when people
learn the truth,
they'll do the right thing.
And so, if he could just...
lay it out and-and show them over and over again
the facts and-and...
and-and create a reasonable argument
that people will do the right thing,
all the way up to the CEO of DuPont,
who he gets to depose in the movie,
which is one of my favorite scenes.
Um... and he believed in justice.
And once he was on that road,
it took him 20 years
He's still fighting it.
-Right. -Um...
but he really believes that people will do the right thing
and it's, it's that part of him that I think kept him going.
You-you end the film, and this is not one of those movies
where spoiler is something you need to worry about.
Because it's a beautiful story, it's a powerful story.
It's really informative, as well.
But at the end of the film,
(stammers) It's really strange,
because it doesn't end with just the regular
happy ending, because you know--
He doesn't drive away in an SUV.
Right. Right, the company won-- I mean, the company was
forced to pay $700 million, I believe, in fines
-for what they had done. -Yeah.
But-but you choose to end the film with facts
in and around how much
people have been affected,
how many people have been affected,
how, you know, widespread this problem is.
How many chemicals are in our bodies,
how many poisons have been spread
throughout the environment.
Why choose to end a film like that, you know?
Everyone would say no, just end it in the, you know,
in the flashy way-- you win the court case,
you drive off into the sunset.
Why did you choose to end it in that manner?
That was a big, um, discussion that we had.
Uh, as filmmakers and as producers
and as, um, you know, our-our, our marketing and all that.
But that's the reality we're living in.
And-and what the film does is it asks us
to take action.
It-it doesn't give you a savior.
It-- We are our saviors.
We are the ones that we've been waiting for.
There is no one person that's gonna do this.
And it's time for us now
to do these things.
(audience applauds)
If anyone watching this movie...
Ah, thank you.
...I don't think they won't be moved, man.
They're definitely gonna be moved.
Thank you, thank you.
Dark Waters
Mark Ruffalo, everybody.