I have adventured it and found nothing but sugar and violence!

For those not in the know, in Poor Things, Mark Ruffalo plays a character described in the movie as a cad and a rake. His name is Duncan Wedderburn. And he seduces Emma Stone’s character, Bella Baxter, to run away from her home and fiance and have an adventure with him in Lisbon.

Borrowing from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Lanthimos and screenwriter Tony McNamara imagine a jewel-toned steampunk world that blends the science fiction of the Shelley novel with a 19th-century bildungsroman. Only this time it’s a woman who’s coming of age.

Dredged from the river after committing suicide, Bella Baxter (Emma Stone) is reanimated, possessing the body of a woman and the brain of a baby. Protected by her creator, Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe), Bella is infantile yet hungry to learn more about the world outside (fun fact: Godwin was Mary Shelley’s maiden name).

When Godwin hires Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo) to write a marriage contract for Bella and Godwin’s student, Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef), she runs away with Duncan, embarking on an eye-opening journey of awakening of epically feminist proportions.

Chatting for a hot second with Mark Ruffalo himself about this new role, one that he himself describes as a big departure from his previous work in movies like Zodiac, Spotlight, Foxcatcher, The Kids Are All Right, You Can Count On Me and, of course, several Marvel movies and TV shows where he plays the Incredible Hulk, I first asked him going in if he had had some trepidation about taking on the role, and if so, what had been his main concerns? - “Well, you know, I hadn’t really played anything like this, and I hadn’t done an accent. I hadn’t really done any kind of a period piece. And, you know, you sort of - you have a career going, and you sort of - you get a brand. And mistakenly, you start to believe maybe that’s who you are or that’s how the world wants to see you. And, you know, I really wanted to be great in a Yorgos Lanthimos movie. And so I said to him, well, it’s ridiculous now, but I said to him a year ago, I want to work with you. I love you, but I don’t want to suck in your movie. And I don’t know if I can - if I’m the right guy for this, you know?”

You’ve been in, like, romantic comedies and you’ve been in movies that have comedic elements like, The Brothers Bloom and even in the Avengers movies. But I don’t think you’ve ever had a role that was so broadly comic as this one. I mean, you even do a pratfall at one point. So can you just sort of compare what it’s like to act in something that’s comedic like this, compared to your more, like, dramatic roles? - “Yeah. You know, even in the dramatic roles, I feel like I’ve always kind of had one foot on a banana peel and the other in the grave, you know,” he laughs.

“It’s like, I just - I see that as, like, the aesthetic that I want to - you know, that is my North Star if I could find a way of doing it. But to just do all-out comedy that’s so physical - and that pratfall is such an interesting thing because, you know, in comedy, I mean, I find, is that you have to be very open to play.”

“And it’s not an inner thing. It’s this open thing. And it happens in this kind of special space that’s outside yourself. And so you have to be very open and aware and ready to grab whatever is being given to you and then play with it. And that pratfall, I think it’s the one you’re talking about - when I come up the stairs?”

Yeah, yeah. You’re almost, like, skating up the stairs. Like, your arms are going back and forth. And then at the landing, you just go flop over! - “And that was an accident,” he again laughs. “And it was like - but that’s the thing. Like, if you’re really in, if you’re in the flow of comedy, the accidents are the gold. Those are the gifts from God, you know? There’s another moment in the movie where Duncan farts when Max McCandless comes in to confront him, right? And that was like the acting God just filled my belly with gas!”

“And poor Ramy looked at me. He was so outraged and, like, humiliated. And it was just the perfect - it was like, oh, we’re end of the scene. And it was literally - that one take was the take that Yorgos used. But I guess why I’m telling you that is, like, you know, great comedy is something that happens spontaneously and is playful. And that’s - I mean, the same thing happens with drama. But, you know, people are so much more well-behaved around drama. So those moments - you know, I can’t lift my butt up and, you know, let one rip in, you know, Spotlight or Foxcatcher, you know? Maybe Foxcatcher, but nowhere else.”

The character in the movie is described as a cad and a rake. And he’s disreputable, but he’s definitely working, like, within the boundaries of society. And he’s challenged and finally undone by Emma Stone’s, like, complete uninhibitedness. Can you talk about that? - Yeah. I mean, it’s such an interesting character in that way because he wants to project himself as the freewheeling, free-loving, libertine sensualist. But really, at his core, he’s incredibly conventional. He’s very conventional in his idea of a man’s place in the world and a woman’s place in the world. And we see somebody whose whole projection of his personality comes undone when those concepts are really put to test by love. Whatever she strikes in him that he supposes is love, whatever version of love he can get closest to. And we see that he’s actually incredibly fragile, and he’s actually incredibly needy, and he’s actually incredibly vulnerable.”

There’s a sex scene montage in Poor Things that I wanted to talk with you about. Like, you’ve done sex scenes before, but this is sex played for comedy. Like, it’s not supposed to be sexy. I mean, it’s meant to make the audience laugh. I mean, the characters are having a good time, but it’s filmed to look awkward and rutting, and your character’s even wearing a corset. So can you talk about, like, doing that kind of scene for comedy? - “The only time you want to do that kind of scene is if it’s for comedy,” he laughs again. “It’s just so horrible and awkward, and it’s so horrible and awkward for everybody else. And then you add in the intimacy coordinator who’s, like, literally giving you the thumbs up from behind the camera, you know, or giving you notes on your technique. So we knew that was going to be a montage. At one point, we were talking about trying to do every position in the Kama Sutra. But there’s, like, 110 now. I think they, you know...”

They have updated it? - “Yeah. When you see the helicopter or the, you know, the rowboat, you know, you’re like, OK, they didn’t come up with that in the Kama Sutra time, you know?”

“But it’s - yeah. To do that and to have in mind the - there’s a lot - you could do a lot of comedy with sex scenes, you know? I mean, they’re already, like, kind of comic just by themselves.”