Three-time Academy Award nominee and beloved superhero Mark Ruffalo will make his eighth appearance in his iconic role as The Hulk in the upcoming Marvel film She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, which will feature the title character’s MCU debut. The nine-episode action-comedy series, created by Jessica Gao, will be released August 18 on Disney+.
Tatiana Maslany’s portrayal of Jennifer Walters serves as the central character of the series. After suffering a life-threatening injury, Walters, an attorney who specializes in superhero-related legal matters, receives an emergency blood transfusion from her cousin, Bruce Banner, aka The Hulk.
When she transforms into the superhuman She-Hulk, she gains Hulk-like abilities, but unlike Banner’s Hulk, she retains her personality, intelligence, and emotional control. Her struggle to find a balance between her career as a lawyer and her recently discovered superpowers is followed in the series.
First appearing in Avengers: Endgame, the Smart Hulk is portrayed by Ruffalo. She-Hulk will be guided by Smart Hulk, who will also teach her how to use her talents.
Before you see him in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, check out these lesser-known facts about Mark Ruffalo.
Here are five things you might not know about Mark Ruffalo:
1) He had untreated ADHD and dyslexia as a child
While Mark Ruffalo says he had a comfortable childhood, there were still some difficulties. Although he had normal abilities in other areas, the actor had trouble understanding lyrics due to his dyslexia.
ADHD, or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, is a disorder that commonly affects people with dyslexia, and Ruffalo experienced it as a child. As a result, he had trouble concentrating, often resulting in random errors.
2) He competed in wrestling when he was in school
In her town, Mark Ruffalo’s father won three wrestling championships. During his junior high and high school years, Ruffalo wrestled, followed in his father’s footsteps and represented not one state, but two.
Ruffalo’s wrestling background was extremely helpful to him when he played an Olympic wrestler in Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher, even if he didn’t receive any awards for it. In order to get fit for the job, he completed a demanding training course for almost six months and gained almost 30 kilos. He eventually received an Oscar nomination for the role.
3) He had a dream that revealed his brain tumor
Mark Ruffalo underwent surgery in 2002 to remove an acoustic neuroma, a benign brain tumor. Interestingly, the actor underwent a CT scan after learning in a dream that he had a brain tumor.
NYU Medical Center performed brain surgery on Ruffalo. Because of this, he suffered partial facial paralysis for over a year, which seriously compromised his facial and auditory nerves. He was able to recover from the paralysis, but the side effects of the surgery eventually caused him to lose hearing in his left ear.
4) He wrote a fan letter to Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese received a fan letter from Mark Ruffalo praising the acclaimed director’s work and expressing his desire to work with him. In the end, the fan letter that Dr. Lester Sheehan in Scorsese’s critically acclaimed 2010 psychological thriller Shutter Island.
5) He supports numerous causes as an activist
Political and environmental activist Mark Ruffalo. It supports the use of renewable energy sources, especially wind and solar energy. He is a co-founder of The Solutions Project, a group working to accelerate the US transition to 100% renewable energy from non-renewable sources.
Ruffalo became an ardent fracking opponent in 2008 after gas companies expressed interest in his family’s property in Callicoon, New York.
Fracking is the technique of injecting high-pressure water along with other materials into a well to fracture deep rock formations and release the hydrocarbons contained within. The process pollutes the water and has a negative impact on the ecosystem, which, among other things, increases the likelihood of earthquakes.
In Pennsylvania, Ruffalo actively coordinated numerous screenings of the natural gas drilling documentary film Gasland. Also in March 2016, he created and narrated the documentary “Dear President Obama: The Clean Energy Revolution Is Now,” which provides a damning account of the former President’s vast expansion in oil and natural gas exploration.
Ruffalo actively supported the Standing Rock Indian Reservation’s protest against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline project in October 2017. He also supports abortion rights for women and is pro-choice.