MCU: 15 most perfectly cast actors in the Marvel Cinematic Universe

Marvel Studios’ AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR..Hulk (Mark Ruffalo)..Photo: Film Frame..©Marvel Studios 2018

10. Mark Ruffalo

Character: Bruce Banner/The Incredible Hulk

Despite his prominence in the Marvel Cinematic Universe these days, it’s a somewhat forgotten fact that Bruce Banner was, in a way, one of the founding fathers of the shared universe. The 2008 film, The Incredible Hulk, was only the second installment in the franchise and told the story of Bruce’s anger-management control. The reason that it’s often overlooked is down to the fact that the titular character was portrayed by Edward Norton and, given that there weren’t that many ties to the infant Marvel Cinematic Universe, it’s easy to forget that those events actually took place in the same universe.

That said, Norton received a lot of praise for his powerful performance, which meant that Marvel Studios would have a tough job filling his shoes. With that in mind, they turned to Mark Ruffalo.

What Ruffalo gave us was quite different to what we saw from Norton. While that could have been down to the fact that The Avengers did its best to distance itself from Bruce’s previous on-screen appearance to avoid confusing viewers, it did allow him to essentially start from scratch because, what we saw was a very different Bruce Banner.

Controlled for the most part, but always a little unhinged, Ruffalo gave us a Bruce that had seemingly mastered his anger, and yet always seemed like he could explode at any given moment. He brought the “mad scientist” aspect of his character to life (improving upon what we didn’t see enough of during Norton’s outing) as the character assists the team of heroes while always managing to intrigue us with his, at times, questionable state of mind. On top of that, he also deserves major credit for playing a dual-role here because he was the first to bring The Hulk to life through motion-capture.

Through his seven-year tenure as Bruce Banner, Ruffalo has proven time and again that he was the right man for the job, proving to be the perfect replacement for Norton while bringing his own unique approach to the character. Now, we couldn’t really imagine anyone else playing the role.