170 Badass Quotes By Mark Ruffalo

Certainly, it's very easy to fall in love with cash. If you're going to make all your decisions based on cash, you're going to have a pretty naffy career.

  

That's what I love about music...all these banalities suddenly turn into these beautiful, effervescent pearls.

  

You can tell a lot about a person by what’s on their playlist.

  

Literally, I think I've quit acting three or four times, only for a few days. Maybe for a few weeks.

  

I don't want to feel like I'm stuck doing one-stock performances.

  

I didn't really have any interest in producing anything.

  

I don't know, one out of every two marriages ends up in divorce so there's a lot of great people out there who people aren't happy with.

  

I don't understand how people can take a gentle, loving life and treat it with such cruelty.

  

I've just been more interested in doing film right now and I don't want to go away from my family for six months, which was what I would have had to have done if I did the play on Broadway.

  

Yeah, there's a tendency to get pigeonholed in Hollywood.

  

We'll engage in pretty extreme violence in the world but, you know, the one thing that comes to humans as easily as eating or breathing or sleeping, is sex.

  

Do theater. Because you'll develop a craft that you'll always have. It'll give you a chance to really learn how to act and you won't go into the world with a few measly tricks that will only carry you so far.

  

I still feel like I'm trying to make it. It's hard to shed the struggling actor thing.

Trying

  

We are turning our grief into winnable actions.

  

A leader in America or anyone who says they truly care about this nation without taking some kind of action is either a liar or insane. In either case, they are unfit to lead.

  

I try to do the things that speak to me in one way or another, and sometimes I'm even drastic.

Trying

  

Studio movies are looking more like independent movies and independent movies are looking more like studio movies, and I think cinema is better now because of it.

  

I like extremes. I like to change things up and keep from getting complacent or stale.

  

I didn't like the distance between my family and myself that I was experiencing from having to work all the time.

  

I come from the theatre where there are no boundaries to the style you're doing; you're doing Molière, then you're doing Chekhov and then you're doing Arthur Miller in a season and no-one bats an eye.

  

I love acting and I love it in all its different manifestations.

  

Actors, you kind of have these ebbs and flows. These moments where you're in your glory - where you're really cracking - and moments where you're not.

  

My first cut was three hours and 17 minutes. And then I just became very shrewd about the editing.

  

The idea of selling is a projection that people create about people that is more of a reflection of who they are than what is actually happening in front of them with the artist.

  

I got into acting because I wanted to act and I love acting. That's my true north: to be creative and to be challenged in what I love to do.

  

The fact that I can make a living and support three kids and my wife doing what I love to do... who does that? That's golden. It's a very privileged thing.

  

Each role, I feel like takes you on a different journey based on who that character is.

Character

  

When you're trying to do character work that's different from what people expect from you, you're sort of in territory that is uncharted, and you don't know how it's playing all the time.

Character , Trying

  

When you're on the road, you sort of go crazy and being away from your family you get stir-crazy and lonely, so I try to keep myself involved as much as possible.

Trying

  

It's a point of pride that no one would treat me any differently because I'm an actor than if I was a gardener.

  

I grew up on Lake Michigan during the PCB explosion, and I remember seeing the sick, dead fish with tumors, the weird deformed seagulls, the scum and the filth floating. We couldn't go swimming.

  

There's a level of trust that you have to have with somebody.

  

Most great parts for guys in wheelchairs tend to go to actors who walk.

  

I have a bag full of stuff that I give to people when they come to my house.

  

Activists must be admired for the sacrifices they are willing to make for those things they hold dear. I would say those kinds of ways of looking at life enrich the value of life, and that is a good thing.

  

Whoever controls your energy controls your destiny. 100 percent renewable energy is 100 percent American.

  

My kids get very upset with me when I leave to do film work, but they have a lot of patience with me when I leave to do environmental work.

  

Electrify your life! With heating and cooling, cooking and travel, and you will be doing a lot to help the future of this planet. There is no need to burn anything anymore.

  

Trying to find the story within the story was hard. Filmmaking is such a reductive process in a strange way and you keep whittling away to what is essential.

Trying

  

That was an interesting aspect: to go to war with the Church to fight for the very thing that the Church was meant to give to people.

  

Artists have always been the front line; that's part of our responsibility. But a lot of the big actors come out, they get slammed, and then they retreat.

  

I'd never seen anyone do a rebuttal review to some of the reviews.

  

Even if my movies weren't big blockbusters, directors generally liked me, so they would fight for me.

  

The working-class folks and the poor, and those normal people living their lives out in the world without the glitter and the fanfare. There is a lot to learn from them.

  

Some of my favorite scenes aren't in the movie. Because you, at some point, realize that your responsibility as director is purely to the story. It's not to your pleasure.

  

The biggest industry hoax is that the United States can't move to renewable energy now. It's a lie.

  

That's my secret Cap: I'm always angry.

  

I'm very nervous in the beginning and then I get in there and start doing my work and I feel more comfortable.

  

Climate change is the greatest threat to our existence in our short history on this planet. Nobody's going to buy their way out of its effects.

  

There is nothing a good long walk can't help work out.

  

I know what it's like to have these big multinational corporations invade your land and promise jobs and promise it's gonna be safe, and then you see the consequences.

  

Folks should be able to harvest, store, use, or sell their own energy as they see fit. This is not a Democratic nor Republican issue, and if anyone tries to convince you it is, they are being purposely misleading.

Trying

  

No great advancement has ever been kept at bay because of ideology, nor greed. Eventually progress moves us forward.

  

My dad [...] sent me a text saying, 'You know who you should play? Columbo. That's your Academy Award.'

Awards

  

Nothing anyone says in a bar is true.

  

I have a carpool with a corrections officer and a construction worker. My kids get to see that we're not segregated based on wealth or standing. It's very cool.

  

There's a misperception about actors that we actually choose the roles we end up doing - it's more that we're chosen for them.

  

I enjoyed growing up part of my life in Virginia Beach. We had the ocean and the beach and a beautiful landscape.

  

By electrifying our lives, we reduce our energy costs by 39 percent, which is a huge savings in itself.

  

People are like, 'How does Julianne Moore look naked?' I don't know. She was pressed up against me the whole time. I couldn't look at her.

  

Burning natural gas will not save us from climate change. It's the same as burning any other carbon-based fuel.

  

Today, wind is the cheapest energy in America; solar is not far behind. In time, fossil fuels will only get more and more expensive.

  

You value the thing you are fighting for, but then you learn to value the time it takes to do it and the time you have off. Both of which are precious.

  

When people sit across from people - gay, straight, whatever - and they talk, they find out that people they may have been demonizing for their lifetime aren't the demons we've expected them to be.

  

Also, stick around. Don't lose your heart, just keep going, keep at it.

  

It is a fact that, today, up to seven million people a year are dying from fossil fuel pollution.

  

Love conquers all - love is the grace that transcends any kind of injustice in the end.

  

When you have to fight for the things you love, you have to measure the value of those things in ways you may not in any other way.

  

It's easy to do nothing, but your heart breaks a little more every time you do.

  

No great undertaking ever looks like it's winnable. That only comes later and only if you are lucky and are willing to fight and have a group of folks around you that are willing to do the same thing, too.

  

Every piece of geopolitical strife that's happening in the world today is revolved around energy, either trying to grab resources or people using resources to fund radical groups.

Trying

  

I think where people get into trouble is hiding and feeling ashamed about what they don't have any control over in the first place.

Think

  

My mom was a hairstylist, but she quit doing that to raise the kids - there were four of us. There was no money.

  

It's a mature thing to understand that your pictures of a lifetime together with someone were... well, the reality is not what we're taught.

Together

  

Actors, like it or not, their voices carry deeply into the culture: people look towards them for attitudes, for right or wrong, and today, the mainstream media doesn't really balance the unheard.

Culture

  

I want to get into some television. There might be a perception about me being only a movie actor, you know, and there's this whole new sort of frontier opening up in that medium.

Me

  

As an actor, you can do everything. I grew up in the theater, and you could do a musical, a comedy, a tragedy.

  

I have mental illness in my family. I have a lot of compassion for those people.

Family

  

I normally don't have that much confidence. I usually am trying to talk to directors out of giving me a job.

Me , Trying

  

I've been having a lot of fun with the Hulk motion-capture stuff, actually. The only distinction that I hold is that I am the only actor to ever play Banner and the Hulk.

  

I love 'The Sportswriter' by Richard Ford. Ford really captures for me the bittersweetness of the quietly suffering American man. It's stoic, sad, and really beautiful.

Me

  

My surfboard is a 7-foot-3-inch spoon made by Rip Curl, kind of between a longboard and a shortboard. Surfing brings me into the here and now. It's a dance with the present.

Me

  

I have a very dear family and very dear friends. They're my rock. These are people who knew me from the beginning, you know, as a loser in a 1972 Dodge Dart with the bumper literally duct-taped to the body.

Family , Me

  

The fracking chemicals sit in open pits, get trucked around, or sent through pipelines that can burst. What do you think happens when frack chemicals and floods and storm swollen rivers mix?

Think

  

I never used to get photographed and people asking for autographs. I don't mind the autographs, but the paparazzi I find weird. As an actor, you want to be able to regard the world instead of having it regard you.

  

When you're a young actor, and you're really fighting to have your place in the world - for me, anyway - it took a mental focus and energy and striving. It took a long time. And it was my whole life.

Life , Me , Time

  

You really can have your dreams and at the same time have a family. But it has to be a really deliberate practice.

Family , Time

  

I've never Googled myself on the Internet.

Never

  

I don't like to go to the gym very much if I can help it.

Like

  

For the longest time, I was Scott Ruffalo's brother. I mean, he was the mayor of Beverly Hills. He was just so beloved there.

Time

  

My mom was a hairdresser. My aunt was a hairdresser. My brother was a hairdresser. My sisters are hairdressers.

  

It's been up, down, and sideways for me, man. I could become a huge star, or I could get cancer tomorrow.

Me

  

I don't have to be a leading man. I can be a character actor. That's really what interests me anyway.

Character , Me

  

Whatever we want to think about American business - work hard, tell the truth, have morality - it's a myth. There's a lot of graft.

Think

  

Shakespeare does a great job of taking 5,000-year-old stories and turning them into modern pieces that are true to the original essence but are completely remade.

  

If you're not yelling at your kids, then you're not spending enough time with them!

Time

  

'What Doesn't Kill You' is a really great movie that was little seen but, I think, is one of my personal favorites.

Think

  

For some reason, my whole life has been, 'You can't do this, you can't do that.'

Life

  

I want to do a western. Nobody does westerns anymore.

  

Certainly, it's very easy to fall in love with cash. If you're going to make all your decisions based on cash, you're going to have a pretty naffy career.