Laura Dern and Mark Ruffalo: When Mark Met Laura

MR: Which one?

LD: Mask.

MR: Oh, right. God, you got all these great parts--are there any parts that you didn't get that you wish you had?

LD: Family Ties, the series.

MR: Really, you auditioned for that? Wow.

LD: And I would have spent 10 years doing a series.

MR: Were you dying to do that?

LD: I don't remember, but I just remember, I could have ended up on a sitcom for a decade.

MR: But did you want to do that?

LD: Not really, no.

MR: Was there something you wanted to do and you didn't get?

LD: Oh, a part I really wanted? Oh, yeah, tons.

MR: Which was it? What was the one?

LD: I screen-tested for Sixteen Candles--John Hughes--it was a big deal.

MR: Did you ever feel like you dodged a bullet?

LD: I got offered a very, very high-profile sort of Brat Pack, hockey, love story kind of movie. Big. Big salary, the girl lead--and the same week I got offered Mask, which was five scenes. I wanted to do Mask and my agents told me, "You're crazy," and they wouldn't work with me if I didn't do this other thing, and so I lost an agent.

MR: Oh, wow.

LD: And I made, whatever, scale on Mask and turned down this other thing and that was the greatest bullet I ever dodged. Just working with Peter Bogdanovich alone--

MR: It's such a great movie.

LD: But I never went through the process of working odd jobs and studying and bartending. What was that like?

MR: That sucked [both laugh]. All I wanted to do was acting.

LD: So you finished high school and went to New York to study?

MR: No, I came here [to Los Angeles] when I was 18. And Stella [Adler] was here half the year because she liked the sun. I was here and bartending, working, cleaning the toilets at the conservatory for my classes. I got on a student-work program. And I was taping Stella's classes, audiotaping them and then later videotaping them. So I'd sit in the booth and I watched all those classes for free, and they were packed, people standing. It was 99 seats and it was just packed. I'd never heard anybody talk about anything with that kind of respect and passion and belief, to hear her talking about acting like that, as the great art form. She used to say, "You're an actor, you're American aristocracy. You have a responsibility to lift yourself to this material and make yourself better."

LD: Isn't that beautiful?

MR: It was amazing as a young boy to hear that. And so that was carrying me through crappy jobs. I just wasn't very good, I don't think, early on, so I wasn't getting any parts. I was auditioning a lot. It wasn't because I wasn't getting the chances, I just didn't book anything. Three per year.

LD: I auditioned, I remember, for commercials all the time as a kid. I never got them. Never got any of it. But, for me, I feel blessed on one level that I had found and established my career by the time that I got out of high school that I missed that angst and just hell of working for a few dollars to get through school. But at the same time, I forfeited junior high and high school to work on movies, which is, you know--

MR: It's not easy work, either. That's a lot of pressure as a young person.

LD: It's not easy work. My parents were very against it, so there was a real conflict in my life with my family because they didn't want me to do it. So I was having to hide this other life, and that's heartbreaking in its own way, and I definitely missed a good portion of school life that would have been important for me, I think, on one level. And then when I'd come back--because I'd leave for three months to do a movie and then I'd come back and all the kids would hate me. "You think you're so cool because you just did a movie." Before you open your mouth, you're being, whatever--

MR: Taken down. You know what, everyone has that. No one escapes it.

LD: But then I got tons of work right away, and then there was a huge period of time where I didn't work.

MR: And that's horrible. Was that the darkest night?

LD: Yeah. I was in school for some time, and that helped, but you have to re-think it all. I always re-think it all. It is cyclical, and that's the gift of having parent actors. You know you're going to work constantly for three years and be very successful and appreciated for what you do, and then not appreciated and no work for two years. Those were the careers I watched growing up.

MR: So it doesn't scare you too much? Does it get to you when you're in the drought, so to speak?

LD: Yeah, it scares me less because I don't think it's about me; I think it's about the business. Because every single person I know has gone through that.

MR: Yeah, it's nice, it's nice to know that. And you directed a short film [1994's The Gift]?

LD: Yes, that's right.

MR: Did you like directing?

LD: I loved directing.

MR: Would you want to go back to it? Aren't you looking for something?

LD: Mm-hmm. We both are, right? You have a couple of things you want to direct.

MR: I have one thing that I know I want to do.

LD: Mark, you're such a good director. You directed me a lot in a very subtle and unobtrusive way.

MR: Now, c'mon, I did not direct you.

LD: You did, you did. No, let me say this: By being there for me, by always staying honest--without saying a word, you would intuit when we were on the right road, and that would help give me some guidance, too. It's a really good thing, because you've got your [director], which is everything as an actor, but you've also got your partner whose eyes you're looking into, and they're going to know if you're being truthful or not because you can feel it. And that was amazing. You'll make such a great director. I am terrified of theater, and I have told you that I want you to direct me in a play.

MR: You have to be in theater.

LD: But only if you direct me in a play, because I don't want to do it without you. [Ruffalo scoffs] I'm serious, you think I'm kidding.

MR: I'm going to do it. We're going to do something. Before it's all said and done, you will be on stage and I will be directing or acting with you.

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