“There was an air-quality guy who was Twittering from set.
“It just blasted into the blogosphere.
Basically we fired him and let him out.”
The Avengers.Marvel Studios
He shook his head.
“It was crazy.
Studios probably spend a million dollars trying to keep all this secret.”
Ruffalo can breathe easy.
The only problem, his costars joked, was that Ruffalo sometimes talked too much.
Like all teasing between friends, the jokes about leaking are a little exaggerated.
More often, Ruffalo just told it like it is.
“I was like, ‘Any insights?’
I think that’s really what you should be going for,'” Ruffalo said.
“And I took that to heart.
I think he was really smart.”
Especially since Penn was known for his intensity.
The Avengers.Marvel Studios
“Ifhe’slike, enjoy yourself, then you know you have license to enjoy yourself,” Ruffalo said.
This was the gear visual-effects artists would use to transform his movements and expressions into the Incredible Hulk.
While the other Avengers suited up in leather or armor, Ruffalo acknowledged that he often felt ridiculous.
“The little motion-capture suit is not my favorite thing,” he said in 2011.
“It’s a cross between a child’s pajamas, a test dummy, and a Chinese checkerboard.
I’m getting used to that.
And everyone has a comment when you walk by, ‘Ooh, those look tight on you!’
or, ‘That’s a new look!’
People make fun of you constantly.”
Was that to get a lighting reference for the Hulk’s skin?
Ruffalo burst out laughing and said it was for “modesty.”
“It’s so it’s possible for you to’t see my d!”
(They even put out a statement saying so.)
“Norton and I are actually friends.
I called him, he was like, ‘You’ve gotta do it, buddy.’
He basically bequeathed it to me,” Ruffalo said.
“It was very cool and very generous of him.
I don’t know the whole history or presume to know; obviously there were many different clashes.”
“We’re all going to get a shot at it before it’s said and done.”
Chris Evans joked that he would do his best to pretend he was hearing it for the first time.
“Two great actors, I think [the Hulk] is built on those,” Ruffalo said.
“First [with Bana’s movie] it was like, trying to find a cure.
The MCU looked for ways to not retread the same story.
The big green kid
His young son helped Ruffalo figure out how to capture the Hulk.
“It’s all impulse.
There’s no impulse control,” Ruffalo said of the creature.
All they really want to do is Hulk out.
And when they see a character thatactuallyHulks out, they’re like, ‘Yes, that’s me!
I want to do that!
I totally understand.’
“And then out comes the Hulk, and everyone’s like ‘What’s wrong with you?'”
From the beginning, Ruffalo found a way to make this a part of Banner’s core.
“We all have our curses, but we sort of learn to live with them.”
Banner was perhaps too miserable, and everyone in those movies fought against the big green guy emerging.
“No one wants to set him off.”
“There’s a really cool dynamic between Tony Stark and Banner,” he said.
“Banner actually finds it really refreshing.
They’re a lot alike, in a strange way.
They’re both these scientists who are mavericks, kind of renegades.
That’s kind of what we’ve been playing with.”
Ruffalo talked about his real life friendship with Robert Downey Jr., who previously worked with him on 2007’sZodiac.
“I love Robert, man,” he said.
That’s what Iron Man does for Bruce Banner, too.
“Tony Stark is really who Banner wished he could have been,” Ruffalo said.
“He’s a successful version of him.
So there’s a cool dynamic there.”
And if there isn’t, then I’m putting it in.”
She sees and can speak to Banner even when he is lost within his monstrous form.
“She kind of becomes his bodyguard, in a weird way.
And he goes with it.
I mean, Bruce, he’s a pacifist, man.”
Ruffalo did think there was a character who didn’t like Banner: Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers.
“Captain probably is the most reticent.
He’s also from a whole other time,” Ruffalo said in 2011.
“He sees where the problem could be.”
Also, Hulk is the twisted version of what Rogers might have become when he took the super-soldier serum.
“There’s a recognition there,” Ruffalo said.
There but for the grace of God goes Cap.
Ruffalo said on the set ofInfinity WarandEndgame.
“There’s so much bad blood now between the two of them, and they both express it.
That’s why Hulk refused to emerge inInfinity War.
Still the petulant child, the monster stormed off to his room rather than help save the day.
It’s time for them each to confront their greatest foe.
Banner is what makes the Hulk go away.
He’s the puny human that the monster fears becoming as much as Banner dreads morphing into the beast.
What makes Hulk afraid?
“It’s himself.
It’s a version of himself that’s weak,” Ruffalo said.
“It’s a version of himself that’s vulnerable.”
For more onAvengers: Endgame, pick up the new issue ofEntertainment Weekly, on stands now.
