10 THINGS YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT
WITH his smashing success as green-skinned superhero the Hulk,
Mark Ruffalo has become a fixture in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This month, the 54-year-old actor is also starring in the time-travel sci-fi flick
The Adam Project, alongside his 13 Going on 30 castmate Jennifer Garner and Deadpool’s Ryan Reynolds. Here are ten things you don’t know about the mild-mannered stage and screen star.
1
He was a competitive wrestler in junior high and high school.
2
He worked as a bartender in L.A. for nearly a decade while trying to kick-start his acting career.
3
He endured more than 800 auditions before getting his big break in Kenneth Lonergan’s Academy Award–nominated film You Can Count on Me.
4
He married fellow actor
Sunrise Coigney in
June 2000 — two years after they met in California.
“She thought I was a mess, but she believed in me and kept encouraging me,” he recalls.
5
In 2001, he was diagnosed with an acoustic neuroma, a noncancerous brain tumor, and surgery to remove the mass left him permanently deaf in one ear.
6
His younger brother, Scott, was murdered in 2008 in Beverly Hills — and the crime remains unsolved.
7
His Oscar-nominated part in 2010’s The Kids Are All Right was specifically written for him by filmmaker Lisa
Cholodenko.
9 8
He accidentally spoiled the ending of Avengers: Infinity War during a fan convention — a year before the film’s 2018 release.
Five of the original six Avengers actors — Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth and Jeremy Renner — got matching tattoos. But Ruffalo claims he passed on getting inked because his “punk rock soul” made him want to be different — and because he’s afraid of needles.
10
He owns two apartments in NYC but calls the Catskill Mountains area “home.”