Mark Ruffalo biography

Acclaimed theater actor Mark Ruffalo struggled with a series of big screen flops before becoming a valuable player in the independent film world. The compact, darkly handsome player with penetrating eyes and pouty lips made his stage debut in 1990, with a role in David Steen's "Avenue A" at Los Angeles' Cast Theater. Three years later, his work in the Festival of One Acts production of Kenneth Lonergan's "Betrayal by Everyone" earned the actor notice and critical acclaim. Ruffalo reunited with Lonergan in 1996, appearing in a New Group production of "This Is Our Youth", starring as Warren Straub in the playwright's tale of dope-addled children of privilege struggling with adulthood. He received glowing notices for his performance, as well as a 1997 Theatre World Award and reprised the role in its successful 1998 Off-Broadway run, co-starring Mark Rosenthal and Missy Yager.

While he quickly made a name for himself on stage, Ruffalo was less successful in his early television work, which included appearances in 1992 episodes of the short-lived series "Arresting Behavior" (ABC) and "Middle Ages" (CBS). In 1994, he guest starred in a memorable episode of CBS' low-rated but critically acclaimed "Due South", with a compelling role as a young father in a moral quandary. Ruffalo was also featured in the direct-to-video "The Dentist" (which found a second life as a near staple on HBO). In 1997, he gave a solid performance opposite Mary Stuart Masterson in the otherwise unremarkable Lifetime TV-movie "On the 2nd Day of Christmas" (1997) and played Theo, the legendary illusionist's brother, in TNT's biopic "Houdini" (1998).

Before rising to prominence on the big screen, Ruffalo suffered a few false starts, including a featured role in the abysmal horror sequels "Mirror, Mirror 2: The Raven" (1994) and "Mirror, Mirror III" (1996). His work in these forgettable bombs, and appearances in the two little-seen 1994 releases "A Gift from Heaven" and "There Goes My Baby" failed to attract much attention to the actor's work. In 1995, "The Destiny of Marty Fine" debuted at the Independent Feature Film Market. Co-written and produced by Ruffalo, who was also featured in a supporting role, the black & white drama was the first runner-up in 1996's Slamdance Film Festival competition. He next portrayed an actor in "The Last Big Thing" (1996; released in 1998), Dan Zukovic's tale of a self-proclaimed zeitgeist arbiter and his quest to wreak havoc on consumerism in Los Angeles. The popular independent comedy "Safe Men" afforded Ruffalo a great deal of exposure, with a role as a real safecracker alongside Steve Zahn and Sam Rockwell as impostors, but he was wasted in a small part in the misfire "54" (both 1998).

In 1999, Ruffalo starred with fellow "This Is Our Youth" veteran Missy Yager and real-life married couple Anne Meara and Jerry Stiller in the comedy feature "A Fish in the Bathtub" playing the grown son of the quarreling pair. The appealing actor received positive notices in this film, and would next be seen along with Heather Graham, Luke Wilson, Casey Affleck and a host of other rising stars in 1999's "Committed" as well as appearing with a cameo in Ang Lee's Civil War drama "Ride With the Devil" that same year.

Ruffalo got a major breakthrough in 2000 when he reunited with director Lonergan for the award winning feature, "You Can Count On Me". making a major impact on audiences, critics and Hollywood when co-starred with actress Laura Linney as the troubled, wayward brother who makes a surprise trip home and immediately stirs up trouble with his sister and her young son, played by Rory Culkin. That triumph led to less challenging roles in bigger budget fare, playing an incarcerated military man opposite Robert Redford and James Gandolfini in "The Last Castle" (2001) for director Rod Lurie and re-telling history as Private Nicolas Pappas in the John Woo action war feature, "Windtalker" (2002). The following year, he starred in "XX/XY (2003)," the surprise Sundance hit about two men and a woman in a three-way sexual relationship. Ruffalo drew rave reviews as the driving force behind the success of the film.

The actor also received much praise for a pair of other roles in 2003: he was sensitive and moving in the effective but little seen "My Life Without Me" playing a man lured into an affair with a married woman after her life is upturned when she is diagnosed with cancer; and in a more sinister turn as a masochistic police detective who enters into an erotic, possibly dangerous affair with a troubled crime victim (Meg Ryan) in director Jane Campion's "In the Cut" (2003). Ruffalo also displayed a strong flair for balancing dark comedy and drama with his turn in the off-kilter, but highly effective, "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" (2004) playing an ethically challenged technician hired to erase the painful memories of a bitter romance from the mind of a heartbroken man (Jim Carrey), only to find romantic complications of his own. The actor next surfaced in milder fare, playing the love interest to Jennifer Garner's 13-year-old flash-forwarded into adulthood in "13 Going on 30" (2004).

In the summer of 2004 Ruffalo had two disparate projects in theaters concurrently: director Michael Mann's compelling "Collateral," in which the actor is nearly unrecognizable as an undercover police detective hoping to save an L.A. cabbie (Jamie Foxx) from a menacing hit man (Tom Cruise); and the unremarkable indie drama "We Don't Live Here Anymore," with Ruffalo as a part of a pair of married academic couples who self-destructively drift into infidelity with the other's spouses. The actor then showed his considerable appeal as a romantic lead in a more mainstream film when he teamed with Reese Witherspoon for "Just Like Heaven" (2005), a romantic comedy with a "Ghost"-like premise that cast Ruffalo as a despondent widower who finds his new apartment inhabited by the spirit of its previous owner, a workaholic female doctor. The film skimped on laughs but the strength of the appealing leads and their scene-stealing supporting players made it ultimately satisfying.

Ruffalo then signed on to star opposite Jennifer Aniston in “Rumor Has It…” (2005), an ill-conceived sequel to the film classic, “The Graduate” (1967), playing the jilted boyfriend of an obituary writer (Aniston) terrified of marrying him. He next played murderer Perry Smith in “Infamous” (2006), the true story of Truman Capote’s investigation into a 1959 quadruple homicide that became his classic novel, “In Cold Blood.” The release of “Infamous” was pushed back to October 2006 due to the 2005 release of “Capote” starring Philip Seymour Hoffman as the lisping author in a near mirror-image telling of his strange relationship with Smith. Meanwhile, Ruffalo costarred in “All the King’s Men” (2006), a remake of the 1949 movie based on Robert Penn Warren’s classic novel of an idealistic man-of-the-people slowly corrupted by the political system.

Ruffalo next costarred in “Zodiac” (2007), David Fincher’s take on the famed Zodiac Killer, who was credited with five grisly murders in the Bay Area during the late-1960s. An elusive killer who reveled in taunting the media and police, The Zodiac’s identity was never discovered, while several other similar murderers were loosely—but not officially—attributed to him, adding an interesting twist to a genre sorely in need of innovation. Ruffalo played the chief investigator, Dave Toschi, on the case, a flamboyant homicide detective who was dismissed from the case in 1978 after he was caught handwriting anonymous fan letters praising himself to the San Francisco Chronicle. His career as a police officer was forever ruined.

Source Hollywood.com

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