Mark Ruffalo wanted to challenge audiences’ perception of him as The Hulk with Poor Things

There are so many places one might recognize Mark Ruffalo from: as the adorable love interest from 13 Going On 30, the sperm donor from The Kids Are Alright, the journalist from Spotlight… the list goes on. But there is, of course, one inescapable, monumental recurring role that has been Ruffalo’s defining character of the last decade: Bruce Banner, a.k.a. The Hulk. After spending so long in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it’s no wonder the actor wanted to explore something entirely different with his role in Poor Things, as he shared with The A.V. Club on the red carpet for Yorgos Lanthimos’ new movie.

“It was really mostly in the writing to say the things that he says,” Ruffalo explained in regards to embodying Duncan Wedderburn, the libertine who seduces Bella Baxter (Emma Stone) and takes her on a whirlwind European journey. “And then it was this kind of playfulness that we had and wanting to break up any perceptions of myself that people come to think about me, even myself, and just to really challenge those expectations that I had on myself or the audience has on me of being a nice guy or being The Hulk or being Banner. I really just felt the need to break all that up and try something new and different and daring.”

Poor Things is undoubtedly daring, and a side of Ruffalo that might take fans by surprise. But his desire to shed Bruce Banner’s nice guy image doesn’t mean he’s totally done with Bruce Banner, either. Asked recently by ComicBook.com about a potential Hulk standalone film, he said, “I’ve been asked not to comment on it, that specifically. Hopefully one day though they’ll work it out. I think it could be really cool and I’ve been putting a lot into what it could be to be cool, but I don’t know yet.”

In the meantime, Ruffalo has clearly enjoyed his time outside of the MCU machine. Asked how he and Emma Stone found their chemistry, the Golden Globe nominee told The A.V. Club, “We did three weeks of play and theater games—dancing and singing and movement. And then where we really had a good time is when we started working on the dancing sequence, and that was just so much fun and funny and crazy and weird.”

Reporting by Drew Gillis.