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At times like these, when the world teeters on the brink of several terrifying calamities at once, awards seasons can be something of a tightrope.
This weekend’s Golden Globe awards were a perfect case in point. The main criticism levelled at the ceremony so far seems to be that it didn’t adequately reflect the moment. It was all a bit 1920s Berlin, with a shimmering array of beautiful millionaires busy congratulating themselves, oblivious to the fear and exhaustion of the rest of the world.
Little wonder, then, that the only real moment of the show to go viral was a red carpet interview with Mark Ruffalo. Called over by an interviewer to explain the pin he was wearing on his tuxedo, Ruffalo explained that “I’m not feeling so great. We have a woman, Renee Good was murdered in our streets of America today … As much as I love all this, I don’t know if I can pretend like this crazy stuff isn’t happening.” [The killing is under investigation and the officer is not suspected of wrongdoing.]
Ruffalo was far from the only attender who wore a Be Good badge to the ceremony – Jean Smart, Ariana Grande, Wanda Sykes and Natasha Lyonne all did the same – but he does seem to be one of the few figures who consistently speaks his mind on matters such as these. The “activism and political views” section of his Wikipedia page runs to 14 dense paragraphs of causes he has supported, on issues ranging from Iran to pollution to the preservation of Manhattan churches. Just this week, post-Globes, he signed a letter calling for the immediate restoration of medical care in Gaza.
Being this outspoken puts Ruffalo in the crosshairs – just today, a newspaper called him “the most sanctimonious man in Hollywood” – which, in an age where the entertainment industry is being run by a smaller and smaller number of figures, can be a dangerous game to play. But the beauty of Mark Ruffalo is that he has always danced to the beat of his own drum.
In terms of his professional output, he has always managed to juggle his personal projects with blockbuster fare. In one year alone he managed to make Dark Waters (a film about a lawyer trying to land a hit on a multinational chemical company) and Avengers: Endgame (a film where he played a version of the Incredible Hulk who can dab). Commercially, one of these was the second biggest film of all time, and the other was just the 130th biggest film of 2019, but Ruffalo approached both with the same vigour.
In other words, he is proof that speaking out on issues that resonate personally won’t necessarily harm your career, so long as you mean it. Which brings us back to the tightrope. Political statements have a history of going down badly at awards shows – Michael Moore was booed at the Oscars in 2003, and Jonathan Glazer created a firestorm when he spoke about Palestine during his acceptance speech in 2024 – but Mark Ruffalo managed to hit the sweet spot. His red carpet moment this weekend landed because it managed to be awkward, sincere and unresolved at the same time. It wasn’t so much an out of touch sermon as a howl of frustration, and who can’t relate to that?
