Mark Ruffalo

Mark Alan Ruffalo (born November 22, 1967, in Kenosha, Wisconsin) is an American actor and producer whose career is a master class in the long game. A decade of obscurity — bartending, bit parts, and acting classes — gave way to one of the most respected résumés in film: four Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor, an Emmy, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Tony nomination, and, along the way, the role of Bruce Banner in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Ruffalo was raised in a working-class family — his father Frank was a construction painter, his mother Marie a hairdresser — with Italian and French-Canadian roots, and the family eventually settled in San Diego and then Los Angeles. He studied at the Stella Adler Conservatory and co-founded the Orpheus Theatre Company, spending the 1990s the way struggling actors do: waiting tables and bartending between tiny roles. His break came through playwright Kenneth Lonergan, who cast him in the original 1996 off-Broadway production of This Is Our Youth; when Lonergan directed You Can Count on Me (2000), Ruffalo's wounded, magnetic Terry premiered at Sundance and announced a major talent.

Just as momentum built, life intervened. In 2001 Ruffalo was diagnosed with a benign brain tumor — a vestibular schwannoma — and the surgery to remove it left him with temporary partial facial paralysis. He has spoken about the terror of waking up unable to move half his face, and the slow fight back. He returned to work and to a remarkable run: In the Cut (2003), Collateral (2004), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), the romantic hits 13 Going on 30 (2004) and Just Like Heaven (2005), David Fincher's Zodiac (2007) as detective Dave Toschi, and Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island (2010).

The 2010s made him an awards perennial. He earned four Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor — a total matched by only a handful of performers in the category's history — for the sperm donor Paul in The Kids Are All Right (2010), wrestler Dave Schultz in Foxcatcher (2014), Boston Globe reporter Mike Rezendes in the Best Picture-winning Spotlight (2015), and the debauched lawyer Duncan Wedderburn in Yorgos Lanthimos's Poor Things (2023). On television he won the Screen Actors Guild Award for playing activist Ned Weeks in HBO's The Normal Heart (2014) and the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor for his devastating dual performance as twin brothers in I Know This Much Is True (2020). He was Tony-nominated for the 2006 Broadway revival of Awake and Sing!

And then there's the green guy. Cast as Bruce Banner in The Avengers (2012), Ruffalo did the impossible: he made the Hulk a character instead of an effect. His weary, wry Banner — 'I'm always angry' — became the MCU's emotional anchor across Age of Ultron, Thor: Ragnarok, Infinity War, and Endgame, with a memorable detour into sitcom territory on She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022). He's set to return as Banner in Spider-Man: Brand New Day (July 2026), and will voice Nero in Pixar's Gatto (2027).

Ruffalo has refused to let the franchise define him. He produced and starred in Dark Waters (2019) as the lawyer who took on DuPont; anchored the Now You See Me heist films as Dylan Rhodes, returning for Now You See Me: Now You Don't (2025); played Daniel LeBlanc in Netflix's All the Light We Cannot See (2023); and in 2025 took two of his biggest swings yet — the thin-skinned demagogue Kenneth Marshall in Bong Joon-ho's Mickey 17, a role the director reportedly wrote with him in mind, and FBI agent Tom Brandis in HBO's crime drama Task, hailed by critics as 'superb.' In 2026 he stars opposite Chris Hemsworth as detective Lou in the MGM crime thriller Crime 101, appears opposite Natalie Portman in Lena Dunham's Netflix romantic comedy Good Sex, and plays Joseph Califano in the Judy Heumann biopic Being Heumann.

Off screen, Ruffalo is one of Hollywood's most committed activists — a parallel career, sometimes the louder one. He co-founded the Solutions Project to push for 100% clean renewable energy and co-founded Water Defense in 2011 to fight fracking; he's marched at Standing Rock, campaigned for clean water, and used red carpets — including the 2026 Golden Globes — to say plainly what he believes. Married to actress Sunrise Coigney since 2000, with three children, Ruffalo's career is proof you don't have to choose between the franchise and the cause. You can smash with both hands.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Mark Ruffalo, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Mark Ruffalo is the rare movie star who feels like he snuck in through the stage door. He spent a decade as a bartender-acteur in Kenneth Lonergan's orbit before You Can Count on Me (2000) announced him at Sundance — and he's been the most human presence in every frame since.

Then came the green guy. Cast as Bruce Banner in The Avengers (2012), Ruffalo did the impossible: he made the Hulk a character, not a VFX shot. His weary, wry Banner — 'I'm always angry' — became the MCU's emotional anchor across a decade of blockbusters, all while he kept doing the real work: Spotlight (2015, Oscar-nominated), Zodiac, The Normal Heart (2014), Foxcatcher.

Off screen he's one of Hollywood's most committed activists, fighting for climate action and clean water with the same intensity he brings to a scene. Ruffalo's career is proof you don't have to choose between the franchise and the cause. You can smash with both hands.