


Ruffalo wanted to send a strong signal about the kind of material he wants to tackle as he becomes the engine of his own creative endeavors as a producer and director.īut “I Know This Much Is True” also hits as the coronavirus pandemic is upending cultural life and the entertainment industry.
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It’s his first major project as a producer after wrapping a decade of work as Bruce Banner/The Incredible Hulk in Disney’s blockbuster “Avengers” series and related Marvel movies.

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In his professional life, Ruffalo took on the job of bringing the dense saga of “I Know This Much Is True” to the screen. “He uses his platform to the best of his ability to bring attention to and shine a light on issues that really need to be in the forefront of people’s attention. “Mark is really the king of putting his money where his mouth is,” says Don Cheadle, a close friend and “Avengers” cast mate. He’s a co-founder of The Solutions Project, an Oakland, Calif.-based nonprofit organization that advocates for clean energy policies across the United States. In October 2016 he took a stand at Standing Rock, bringing a delivery of solar energy panels to protesters battling the construction of an oil pipeline through Native American lands in North Dakota. He has helped lead the successful fight against natural gas fracking in his adopted home state of New York. Unlike leading men of Cooper’s era, Ruffalo is also a committed political leftist and environmental activist who has twice endorsed Bernie Sanders for president. The three-time Oscar nominee brings an Everyman quality to his roles, many of which emerge from the earthy storytelling tradition of such hardscrabble poets as Clifford Odets, Arthur Miller and Kenneth Lonergan. The same is often said of Ruffalo, who has emerged as a kind of Gary Cooper for modern times. “Derek works harder than anybody I’ve ever seen.” “I knew it would be a s-load of work,” says Ruffalo, referring to lensing the six-part limited series. Ruffalo stars as two very different twin brothers in the story of a blue-collar Connecticut family’s agonizing struggle with schizophrenia and loss. Ruffalo can’t say enough about how much the two were in sync on the grueling six-month shoot as they adapted the acclaimed 901-page novel by Wally Lamb. “He really understands working-class America and the namelessness that is part of that,” Ruffalo says of director-producer Derek Cianfrance, his key collaborator on the series. Wearing a black T-shirt offset by a salt-and-pepper beard, Ruffalo betrays a restless energy as he gesticulates all over the Zoom frame. His job at this frenetic moment in the early days of the COVID-19 lockdown is to talk up his work as producer and star of “ I Know This Much Is True,” the HBO limited series that premieres May 10.

Thomas Loof and Pernille Loof for Varietyīut Ruffalo won’t quit. In Washington, President Donald Trump has been forced to grimly tell Americans that coronavirus disruptions may last until July or August. Andrew Cuomo has just ordered the closure of bars and restaurants and banned gatherings of more than 50 people. On this momentous Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is taking a historic 2,997-point dive.
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At his home in rural Sullivan County, a patch of upstate New York that lies halfway between Poughkeepsie and Scranton, Pa., the spotty connection keeps cutting him off mid-sentence.Īfter the fourth dropout, no one would have begrudged Ruffalo, 52, if he asked to finish the conversation on a less-chaotic day. It’s the afternoon of March 16, and the actor known for his work in everything from “The Avengers” to indie hits like “The Kids Are All Right” is roughly two-thirds of the way through a lengthy Variety interview conducted via Zoom video conference. Instead he’s struggling with perhaps the most urgent aspect of the way we live now - his Wi-Fi service. Not professionally, nor on a personal level. Mark Ruffalo is having a hard time connecting.
