Detailed Biography

Mark Alan Ruffalo is an American actor, director, producer and screenwriter. He is perhaps best known for his roles as Fanning opposite Tom Cruise in the 2004 film Collateral, Stan in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Inspector David Toschi in the 2007 film Zodiac. Ruffalo has also appeared as a romantic leading-man in successful "chick flicks" such as View From the Top , 13 Going on 30 , Just Like Heaven and Rumor Has It .

Early life

Ruffalo, of Italian and French-Canadian descent, was born in the industrial town of Kenosha, Wisconsin, the son of Marie Rose, a hairdresser and stylist, and Frank Lawrence Ruffalo, Jr., a construction painter. He has two sisters, Tania and Nicole, and a brother, Scott, who died in December 2008 from a gunshot wound to the head. Ruffalo has described himself as a "happy kid" and his upbringing as taking place in a "very big Italian family with lots of love". He attended a progressive school and was raised around the local Bahá'í community, of which his father was a member. Ruffalo spent his teen years in Virginia Beach, Virginia, where his father worked. Ruffalo graduated from First Colonial High School, alma mater of pop and country icon Juice Newton. Ruffalo then moved with his family to San Diego, California and later to Los Angeles, California, where he took classes at the Stella Adler Conservatory and co-founded the Orpheus Theatre Company. With the OTC, he wrote, directed, and starred in a number of plays and spent the next nine years earning his money as a bartender.

Career

Ruffalo had minor roles in films like The Dentist , the low-key crime comedy Safe Men and Ang Lee's acclaimed Civil War Western Ride with the Devil . Through a chance meeting with writer Kenneth Lonergan, Ruffalo began collaborating with Lonergan and appeared in several of his plays, including the original cast of This is Our Youth , which led to Ruffalo's role as Laura Linney's troubled, aimless drifter brother Terry in Longeran's acclaimed, Academy Award-nominated 2000 film You Can Count on Me. He received favorable reviews for his performance in this film, often earning comparisons to the young Marlon Brando, and won awards from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and Montreal World Film Festival.

This led to other significant roles, including the films XX/XY , Isabel Coixet's My Life Without Me alongside Sarah Polley , Jane Campion's In the Cut alongside Meg Ryan , Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind , and We Don't Live Here Anymore , which is based upon two short stories written by Andre Dubus. He appeared opposite Tom Cruise as a narcotics detective in Michael Mann's acclaimed crime-thriller Collateral . More recently, Ruffalo has appeared as a romantic lead in "chick flicks" such as View From the Top , 13 Going on 30 , Just Like Heaven and Rumor Has It . In 2006, Ruffalo starred in Clifford Odets's Awake and Sing! at the Belasco Theatre in New York, for which he was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play. In March, 2007, he appeared in Zodiac as SFPD homicide inspector Dave Toschi, who ran the investigation to find and apprehend the Zodiac killer from 1969 through most of the 1970s. October 2007 saw Ruffalo play divorced lawyer Dwight Arno, who accidentally kills a child and speeds away, in Terry George's film Reservation Road based on the same titled novel by John Burnham Schwartz.Ruffalo will also star in the upcoming film The Crazies Co-staring Timothy Olyphant,Ruffalo Will play General Robert Lee Gage.

Personal life

In 2002, Ruffalo was diagnosed with an acoustic neuroma, a type of brain tumor, and had surgery; the tumor was benign, but resulted in a period of partial facial paralysis. He fully recovered from the paralysis and returned to good health as well as an active life and movie career.

On December 1, 2008, Ruffalo's brother, Scott, was shot at his Beverly Hills condominium, with one report describing the shooting as "execution-style" in the back of the head. Scott died on December 8, 2008. Police took two people into custody: a woman who is considered a suspect and a man considered a "person of interest". One of the suspects reportedly told police that Scott Ruffalo shot himself while playing Russian roulette; the witnesses were later released as the police investigation continued.

Since June 2000, he has been married to French-American actress Sunrise Coigney , and they have three children: a son Keen, born in 2001, and daughters Bella Noche, born in 2005, and Odette, born in 2007, in Los Angeles, California.

Political views

On October 4, 2006, he appeared on daily news program, Democracy Now!, and spoke against the war in Iraq, the Military Commissions Act, torture and the Bush administration in general. He also announced his speaking engagement at the The World Can't Wait protest in New York City on October 5, 2006. Ruffalo contributed to Mike Gravel in his 2008 presidential bid.

In October 2007, Ruffalo criticized the 9/11 Commission Report as "completely illegitimate" and called for re-opening the investigation. He said: "I saw the way they all came down and I am baffled. My first reaction is that buildings don't fall down like that." He also criticized the 9/11 truth movement, saying "There's so much information that's been put out there by truth for 9/11 and it's ... so much of it has been kind of stretched that a lot of people are grabbing a hold of the more kind of sensational parts of what doesn't jibe with the story to discredit the movement."