Mark Ruffalo Learned About His ‘Avengers’ Casting in This Ridiculous Way

We’re at a point where the novelty of major actors joining the MCU has long eroded. It’s now a punchline about how quickly an actor will get sucked into the Marvel machine, to the point that newly minted stars like Paul Mescal and Jeremy Allen White have talked about dodging that bullet. This wasn’t the case 14 years ago, when it was first announced that indie darling Mark Ruffalo would become Bruce Banner for The Avengers, launching his stardom into a whole new stratosphere that he’s still thriving in. Joining such a franchise is a huge ordeal, and Ruffalo once shared what the process of getting the role was like, and it speaks to how freaky doing mainstream studio fare can be.