Ruff! Ruff!

Mark Ruffalo's raw vulnerability has made him a breakout star -- and helped him become the thinking woman's sex symbol.

By Heather Havrilesky

Aug 6, 2004 | Mark Ruffalo is the thinking woman's sex symbol. Say his name out loud among a gaggle of women or gay men, and watch as their minds turn filthy and their voices get deep and dumb with longing, like a herd of Homer Simpsons drooling over that one delectable doughnut just out of reach. It's been that way since "You Can Count on Me" came out in 2000, when no one could stop talking about Ruffalo, the unknown actor who brought vulnerability and sweetness to the role of Terry, Laura Linney's misguided brother.

Ruffalo's career took off immediately, and he appeared in quick succession with Robert Redford and James Gandolfini in "The Last Castle" (2001) and in John Woo's "Windtalkers" (2001). He was set to appear in M. Night Shyamalan's "Signs" (in the role that went to Joaquin Phoenix), when he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Ruffalo made a full recovery and returned to work, but the experience changed his outlook forever. It wasn't until Jane Campion cast him in her suspense thriller "In the Cut" (2003) that the silent, lustful majority came out of the closet with their crushes on the low-profile heartthrob. In that movie, Ruffalo plays Meg Ryan's lover, a mustachioed cop who's something of an expert in the bedroom. The film got mixed reviews, but the love scenes were the stuff of instant legend.

This year, Ruffalo, 37, brought new charms to the tech-geek stereotype when he stripped down to his tighty whities with Kirsten Dunst in Charlie Kaufman's "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" (2004). He played Jennifer Garner's dreamy boyfriend in "13 Going on 30" (2004) and also appears with Tom Cruise in Michael Mann's "Collateral," which opens this week.

Will Ruffalo be pigeonholed as an object of lust? His remarkable chops as an actor and good taste in roles should prevent that from happening -- although sex appeal didn't exactly hurt Colin Farrell or Brad Pitt. But then, Ruffalo's appeal lies in those qualities that separate him from his swaggering peers. He seems devoid of that cockiness that keeps Farrell boozing and schmoozing in tabloids or Tom Cruise grinning disingenuously on the talk-show circuit. Far from a cookie-cutter leading man looking for his next blockbuster, Ruffalo remains committed to the small theater company he helped found and to the sorts of low-budget independent films that stars of his caliber usually sidestep for higher-profile jobs.

John Curran's "We Don't Live Here Anymore," an independent film that won rave reviews at Sundance, may be his most challenging yet. Based on two short stories by Andre Dubus (adapted by Larry Gross) the film, which opens nationwide next week, focuses on two couples whose marriages deteriorate as the boundaries between them become blurred. At times excruciatingly dark, the film's unflinching exploration of the battleground of marriage is heavy lifting for any actor, but Ruffalo approaches his role with a mesmerizing mix of fury and vulnerability, and his performance is as nuanced and as heartbreaking as the breakout performance that jumpstarted his career.

Here's more bad news for those already consumed by their adoration for Ruffalo: He's every bit as charming in person as he is on the big screen. During an entire hour-length interview, he leaned forward on the couch and listened attentively, laughed easily, and expressed profound interest in my new puppy, happily recalling the Jack Russell he and his wife used to have that learned how to open the refrigerator on his own. Before the hour was up, he'd offered his thoughts on everything from infidelity to his brush with serious illness and the mentality of your average Hollywood lemming.

I just saw "We Don't Live Here Anymore" last night and I really enjoyed it, but I love movies about dysfunctional relationships, so...

What better kind of movie is there? But this film does it in a way that it's not too alienating. I think people who've had long relationships can kind of see themselves in it, and they see how a relationship gets to a point like that.

Absolutely. You can understand how each character got to where they are.

Yeah. You can see the dreams not realized. Being young parents, there's no money. They [Jack, played by Ruffalo, and Terry, played by Laura Dern] aren't talking to each other, because so much work goes into having young children. You know, they just lost each other along the way somehow.

One nice thing about the movie is that you can't predict how any of the characters is going to react to the situation.

Yeah! See, I know what they're going to do, because I got to read it beforehand!

Well, that helps.

So I don't get to enjoy that aspect of it.

For the rest of us, it's so hard to know how each person will react. Although you never really know how even someone close to you will react to such extreme circumstances. And your character is probably the most conflicted character of the four.

Yeah, they're all pretty conflicted. Hank [played by Peter Krause] is probably the least conflicted in a way. Everything slides off him. But Jack [Ruffalo's character] is at an age where his life dreams aren't being realized, and he sort of feels his youth slipping away, and he's struggling financially. He has questions about whether or not he married the right woman. Is this the life he's meant to have? There's that great Tolstoy excerpt about, "He realized the life he had may have all been a lie." And he's fantasizing about another kind of a life. But at the bottom of it is a decent guy who has a certain kind of morality. And so, when you have a moral character doing immoral things, you've got a lot of conflict. Yeah, I feel bad for Jack. He's in a bad spot.

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