We’ve already reported that Mark Ruffalo will be the next incarnation of the Incredible Hulk in Marvel’s upcoming superhero party The Avengers. Following in the footsteps of Eric Bana and Edward Norton, people are understandably worried about a third actor to take on the same role, especially after comic book fans and audiences alike were more than pleased with Norton’s interpretation. Now, thanks to an interview with IGN, Ruffalo gives us some closure and tells his thoughts on playing Bruce Banner, what he’s doing to prepare for the role, how he’s going to make it different, whether we’ll see a Hulk that can actually talk, and how playing the Hulk is like a sex scene.
Check out what he had to say after the jump.
Speaking to IGN, Ruffalo spoke on multiple Hulk-related topics. On playing one of the biggest roles in superhero history:
It's like doing a sex scene. It's like doing a sex scene with 20 total strangers standing around and someone telling you how you can do it better. All eyes are on you, right?
When he starts shooting:
In April.
How he’s preparing:
You dust off. You go back. I think you go right back to the beginning and dust off your first issue of Avengers and I've been doing that. I've been watching the 100 hours of Bill Bixby's Hulk. And I've been really thinking about the inception, the original motivation of that character and why they came up with that character. He's a cross between Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Frankenstein. I'm finding a lot of stuff there. And I'm actually going to be physically playing the Hulk. No other actor's ever done that. So I've been getting into Tai Chi and Pilates and doing a lot of movement stuff. I don't know what I want to do with it exactly, but I've been working physically to bring the leviathan alive.
On how he’s too much of a nice guy:
I've heard some of the fans and I totally respect them and I hear their concern about Mark Ruffalo being a nice guy, but I assure you just like everybody else I have my very dark side. Maybe more because I'm an actor.
Will his Hulk be unique:
What I'm worried about is bringing some spark of originality and spontaneity to that character. He's the only one who doesn't want to be there [in The Avengers] really. Everyone else is sort of digging on their super powers and he's the only one who doesn't want to be there, which could be an incredibly uninteresting person to spend two hours with.
Whether the Hulk will be able to speak:
We ended the last Hulk with him smiling and you feel like he's getting control of it. And I don't know how deep we're gonna get into that, but my general feeling is for Bruce Banner/the Hulk and what I hope we talk about is that Bruce Banner is slowly but surely -- it's like riding a wild mustang. At some point you do start to get it a little but under control. And like I said, I don't know what the final script's gonna be, but we've talked a lot about him at some point being able to penetrate his consciousness with the consciousness of the goliath.
His thoughts on Guillermo Del Toro’s live action version of the Hulk:
Dude, it's like my generation's Hamlet. It looks like we're all gonna get a shot at it. I guess the more the merrier, you know?
There’s no denying that Mark Ruffalo has proved his acting chops in countless movies. I loved him in The Kids are All Right and Shutter Island and think he’s a very natural actor to watch. I am though, along with others, slightly concerned on his ability to bring out his inner Hulk. When I heard of Norton playing the angry green giant, flashbacks of American History X had me immediately on board. However, remembering Ruffalo in 13 Going on 30 or Just Like Heaven doesn’t do the same. Let us not forget that this Hulk will be all motion capture which is something thus far unseen. That means that Ruffalo cannot rely on post-production CGI to fill in the angry blanks. Nonetheless, I’ll stick by his side just because I respect him so much as an actor. We’ll see when The Avengers hits theatres May 4th, 2012.
