Even though Mark Ruffalo is not the most popular dude around here, I still like to post new photos of him whenever we get them in, in the hope that one day he’ll be as internet-crush-worthy as, say, Tom Hiddleston. Perhaps the issue is that Ruffalo is happily married with a pack of kids and he never really puts himself out there as “please crush on me, ladies!” Plus, he moved pretty quickly out of the rom-com “boyfriend” type of roles. Ruffalo’s latest movie is Spotlight, the film about the Boston Globe’s Pulitzer-prize-winning investigation into pedophile priests in Boston. Ruffalo plays a journalist alongside an ensemble that includes Michael Keaton, Billy Crudup, Liev Schreiber, Rachel McAdams and more.
These photos are from the LA premiere of Spotlight, and I’m just including the Keaton and Ruffalo pics. There’s a lot of Oscar buzz around Spotlight, but from what I’m seeing, the buzz is for the film as a whole rather than one particular actor. It’s possible Keaton or Ruffalo or maybe even Crudup could end up with some major nominations, of course, but I think the money will probably go into a Best Picture campaign. Which is just fine by Ruffalo – he sat down for a USA Today interview and he basically says he’s not that jazzed about having to do an Oscar campaign for the next three months. Some highlights:
He’s hoping to enjoy Spotlight’s Oscar buzz. “[This year it] will be a lot more enjoyable.” He had to fly between London, NYC and LA endlessly last year, so he hopes to be in NYC more this Oscar season: “I’ll be here more, so it’s much easier to get to (L.A.) than from the other side of the world. But you never know. The movie could just come out and poop out. I hope it doesn’t.”
Being raised as Catholic in Wisconsin: “The nun who was teaching me early on to read was very cruel because of my dyslexia… these teachings of Christ revolved around love and social justice, and then what I was seeing in that community, the way they did business, the way nuns treated children — all of that seemed to be at odds with each other. I lost my faith in that institution when I was very young.”
He & his wife raise their kids with a religion that’s “a bit more free-flowing, giving them a lot of choices.”
He was outraged reading Spotlight: “There’s a power structure that allows these things to happen. I have three small children, and when Mike says (in the film), ‘It could’ve happened to me, it could’ve happened to you, it could’ve happened to any of us’ — I really understood that sentiment.”
Spotlight changed the way he sees journalism: “All of them really see it as the last crux against tyranny in a democracy, that it’s essential. There’s definitely a higher calling and that’s what’s driving them: Something bigger than myself, that I’m fighting for people who don’t have a voice.”
On the idea of a Hulk film: “It feels even further away. I’ve been around long enough to be OK with it. There’s only so much that’s in my power and I’m not going to agonize over what isn’t. I definitely try to limit that to my kids and the things that really matter to me.”
I like what he says about being able to enjoy himself a little bit more during this year’s Oscar campaign. Ruffalo was nominated for Foxcatcher at the 2015 Oscars and he was still filming and doing reshoots on The Avengers: Age of Ultron. He probably didn’t know if he was coming or going for like three months.
As for the Catholic stuff… he’s been talking a lot about how he left the Church when he was very young, and I believe him.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
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