Mark Ruffalo’s guide to saving the world
Hollywood’s most active activist on being the change you want to see in the world
IN TODD HAYNES’ new drama Dark Waters, Mark Ruffalo plays real-life attorney Robert Bilott, who spent 20 years battling chemical company Dupont due to their lethal dumping of hazardous acid. A committed activist himself, Ruffalo tells us how he hopes to effect real change.
FIGHT FOR… CHEMICAL ACCOUNTABILITY
“Due to this film there’s already been more movement than there’s been in 20 years on regulating and dealing with this range of chemicals. We’re doing an advocacy campaign with the film, Fightforeverchemicals.com, which grounds it with the people who are actually fighting this. And also it opens up a bigger conversation about the systems that brought us this. We have a pivotal election in 2020, and hopefully the film inspires people to vote, to get out and organise for people who we know will fight to change these systems.”
FIGHT FOR… AN END TO FRACKING
“People think, ‘Why the fuck should we listen to you? You’re an actor.’ When I moved to upstate New York I ended up in the fracking fields, on the frontline. I stood and fought alongside my neighbours. People are aware of fracking in a way that they never were. The oil and gas industry can’t get away with the same shit they got away with in 2006. And I do feel like I had a small part in it — people saw me get involved and I think it helped them drop their own fear about what’s expected of them.”
FIGHT FOR… LGBTQ+ RIGHTS
“When I did The Kids Are Alright it landed in the middle of our debate here on gay marriage and had a profound impact on that discussion, because people saw themselves in it, even though we were talking about a gay couple. That’s the power of that kind of storytelling. I saw it with The Normal Heart, I saw it with Spotlight, and I’m seeing it with Dark Waters. But you’re taking a crapshoot. I don’t think you can set out to
change the world with something — you’ve gotta tell the story, and in a way that people are gonna relate to.” FIGHT FOR… CLIMATE CHANGE ACTION
“[Climate change action] is not happening fast enough. We’re fucked. In some regards. Our kids will not be living in the same world that we grew up in. But we have things on our side. The economic winds are at our back. Fossil fuels are becoming more expensive. People are becoming less tolerant of it, knowing that there’s an alternative. The movement is building. Corporations are starting to get it — they don’t wanna be the bad guys in the story, and the consumer is letting them know, ‘We’re fuckin’ on to you.’ So I’m pessimistic but hopeful.”