Mark Ruffalo isn’t the sort of actor who demands adoration: He had to be convinced to accept an activism award last night at the Annual Riverkeeper’s Fishermen’s Ball, and while there, he said that self-obsession just isn’t his bag. “I’ve never Googled myself on the Internet,” he told us. Does that mean he’s never heard of “Science Bros,” an Internet subculture celebrating the friendship of Bruce Banner and Tony Stark, the characters Ruffalo and Robert Downey Jr. played in The Avengers? “No, what is that?” he asked. And then the giggles began.
If you’re as unfamiliar as Ruffalo was, feel free to Google image search “Science Bros” for a moment: You’ll find all sorts of fan art — some cute, some sexual — that pairs Ruffalo and Downey Jr.’s superhero BFFs. When we brought it up on our phone, Ruffalo could hardly believe it. “Are you joking?” he asked as he began scrolling through the images. “There’s all this art of me and Robert?” Giggles gave way to full belly laughter. A concerned publicist came over, though Ruffalo was laughing so hard that he could barely explain himself to her.
“Is that a cartoon of you?” she asked.
“Yes! It’s me and Robert! Look at this! There’s thousands of them!” Ruffalo tried to contain himself. “It’s called the Science Bros. This is awesome. I’ve never heard of it. Why hasn’t anyone told me about that?”
He kept scrolling. A pertinent question suggested itself. “So, are they all quasi-homoerotic?” he asked. “Like tinged with … ” Yup. “That’s cute!” He alighted on a drawing of Stark leaning onto Banner’s shoulder suggestively, offering him something out of a bag. “Would you like a gummy worm?” Ruffalo murmured, supplying his own caption.
Is he now a Science Bros shipper, then? “Yeah! I love it; it’s awesome,” Ruffalo enthused. “I endorse it 100 percent. You know what it is? It’s open-source creativity.” And here’s a scenario for the fans to contemplate: Ruffalo couldn’t wait to drop his newfound knowledge bomb on Downey Jr. “I’m going to call him and tell him, and he’s going to laugh his ass off,” Ruffalo said. “He’ll love that.”
Official Statement from best Duo nominees RDJ & MR @mtv “We campaigned hard for this and won’t see it stipped from our 4 hands!”
— Mark Ruffalo (@Mruff221) March 8, 2013
Alternative statement from MR and RDJ on MTV nomination. “We are truly humbled…well at least one of us… We will stop at nothing to win.”
— Mark Ruffalo (@Mruff221) March 8, 2013
Mark and his fellow Avengers are nominated in 4 categories at the MTV Movie Awards: Movie of the Year, Best On-screen Duo (Mark & Robert), Best Fight and Best Villain (Tom Hiddleston). You can vote here.
“The Avengers” is up for an Oscar in the visual effects category this year, and while we could think of 100 reasons to support the nomination, it really comes down to one: the brilliantly executed Hulk.
But it wasn’t just the Oscar-nominated Jeff White and his ILM team responsible for bringing Hulk to life. Crucial the process was actor Mark Ruffalo, who not only played Bruce Banner, but also fully devoted himself to creating his monstrous CGI counterpart.
“I can’t credit Mark enough for his involvement in the process,” White tells CBR News in a new interview. “There’s no Hulk, really, without a great Banner, and I think he completely nailed that performance. Our whole approach to the Hulk is — there are so many kinds of art projects to figure out what makes a digital human look real, and the way we went after it was to say, ‘Okay, we’ve got Mark Ruffalo and we’re going to utilize him for not only performances and motion capture, but even skin texture.’ We did a dental mold! The Hulk’s teeth are sort of a large-ish version of Mark’s real teeth.”
“Just always going back to Mark as kind of the thing in reality that we can base everything on made a huge difference in terms of making the Hulk look real,” he continues. “It wasn’t always fun, I’m sure, for him, having to wear the motion capture suit while everybody got awesome superhero costumes on set and having to do a lifecast for us and everything like that. He really is not only an incredible actor but just really gracious and really, really interested and involved in the process, but also just a super nice guy.”
I added more posters, stills, promotional images and behind the scenes photos of Mark in “The Last Castle” and “The Avengers”.
The 85th Annual Academy Awards nominations were announced and “The Avengers” received one in the Best Visual Effects category! Congratulations to Janek Sirrs, Jeff White, Guy Williams and Dan Sudick!
“Visual effects is a truly collaborative process, and I am thrilled to see the hard work and dedication of all the artists that worked on ‘The Avengers’ recognized by the Academy. The films nominated for visual effects this year are diverse and beautiful, and it’s truly an honor to be considered with them. It¹s an incredible honor to be nominated for an Academy Award.” – Jeff White
Via Washington Post
‘The Avengers’- Hulk Special Effects Highlighted from Ruffalo Central on Vimeo.
Source: Huffington Post
‘The Avengers’- How ILM assembled the visual effects – Inside Movies – EW.com from Ruffalo Central on Vimeo.
Source: Entertainment Weekly
I added a scan from the December 28 Issue of Entertainment Weekly. Thanks to my friend Kelly for donating it!
