Wally Lamb novel makes it to HBO
BUT WALLY LAMB ADAPTATION WAS SHOT IN POUGHKEEPSIE
five weeks, and returned 30 pounds heavier to play Thomas.
“I remember when Mark came back to set as Thomas,” the director says, “The crew was in like a state of awe and shock, because he was a completely different guy, and it felt weird talking to him.”
“It was an astounding performance to watch, and a commitment from one of the great actors,” Cianfrance says.
“We didn’t want it to be, like, I run and put a wig on, and then run and do the same scene on the same day,” Ruffalo says.
The weight was in part to show a reaction to the mood stabilizers and antipsychotic drugs Thomas would have been taking. And it was no fun for the actor to gain weight, he says. “When you’re force-feeding yourself, some of the romance of food sort of leaves.”
But he was intent in accurately portraying the character and his world. “That aspect of it was challenging,” Ruffalo says. “I was really afraid to play it, to be honest with you. I think it’s really an important issue, and I want to tell it as honestly as possible.”
“I wasn’t trying to be different than Dominick, but I was trying to allow Thomas’s experiences and his reality feed the development of that character,” Ruffalo says. “Spending time in institutions, what these kinds of medicines actually do to you physically and mentally, how the obsessive nature of it manifests itself.”
Part of the success came from playing opposite the stand-in actor Gabe Fazio, “who, basically, played both characters as well,” Ruffalo says. The cast also includes Archie Panjabi, Melissa LeoRosie O’Donnell, Juliette Lewis, Kathryn Hahn and Rob Huebel.
It didn’t take much to for Ruffalo to deeply relate to the story of a brother and a tragedy. His brother Scott, a hairdresser, died of a single gunshot to the head in 2008 in Beverly Hills.
“Listen, I mean, I’m the type of actor that I do like to draw on my experiences, and I’ve had a lot of them. And my brother will always be a big part of that,” Ruffalo says. “A lot of us have siblings here. We know how complicated that is and how deep that goes and how powerful it is and how messy it is. And so, yeah, Scott’s in all this and in all of my work in some way or another.”