Lou Ferrigno was disappointed by the Hulk in Avengers: Endgame

Former Hulk actor Lou Ferrigno publicly expressed his disappointment with Avengers: Endgame’s interpretation of the character.

Lou Ferrigno, star of the popular 1970s TV series The Incredible Hulk has been connected to the savage, green beast for decades. It’s been a pivotal and inextricable part of his career, but the actor, 68, concedes that he harbors some disenchantment with the direction the big guy ultimately took in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Ferrigno was at Canada’s Hamilton Comic-Con where he spoke (via ComicBook.com) about the “Smart Hulk” in Avengers: Endgame that has the green behemoth’s body and strength but also Bruce Banner’s brains and personality. The transformation, brought on by an 18-month sabbatical in his gamma lab, may have benefited Banner after the time jump in the blockbuster film; Ferrigno, however, sees things differently.

Though happy at first with the improvement of the visual effects over time, especially in the first couple of movies he took part in, Ferrigno believes the “beauty” and “quality” of the monster he remembers from the ’70s series was lost in Endgame’s interpretation, which he called disappointing. His Hulk was “a creature”, and he thinks that’s the way Hulk should be.

Said Ferrigno at Hamilton:

"“What’s happening is that the first two Hulk movies, the CGI was improving, but the last one, Endgame, I was disappointed. Because the Hulk needs to be hideous, he needs to be a creature.”"

He places some blame on Mark Ruffalo — who was the lone performer, supplier of motion-capture, and voice this time around — and Disney:

"“You see in Endgame, Mark Ruffalo — I think it has a lot to do with him and Disney — I didn’t like the way it portrayed [Hulk]. It took away that beauty, that quality of the Hulk. That’s why a lot of people liked the series.”"

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Today’s disconnect from stories is part of a trend in entertainment, Ferrigno observes. Using Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone as his example, and somewhat joining Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola’s chorus decrying Marvel cinema, he says “good stories” you can learn from have lost favor to the spectacle of CGI:

"“We need good stories. Good elements, good messages about life. Because when you see the series, even like The Twilight Zone, the original Twilight Zone, you learn something from every episode. The CGI, I mean, it’s all different. People like it that way because it’s bigger entertainment on the screen.”"

At a previous convention appearance, Ferrigno clarified he thinks Ruffalo is “a wonderful actor,” he just didn’t agree with Ruffalo’s spin on the character:

"“Mark is a wonderful actor. But we’ve had three different actors — we’ve had Eric Bana, Edward Norton and Mark Ruffalo. I like Bill Bixby the best, I like Edward Norton. But Ruffalo — I think he’s a wonderful actor, he blends in with the Marvel aspect of the Avengers — but I can’t take him seriously enough.”"

Lou Ferrigno played an inarticulate Hulk opposite Bill Bixby’s David Banner for five seasons and four TV movies — two of which were backdoor pilots for Thor and Daredevil shows that were never picked up. He provided the voice for the gamma-irradiated goliath later on in cartoons, Ang Lee’s 2003 film Hulk, 2008’s The Incredible Hulk, and helped with layering the Hulk’s voice in The Avengers and its sequel, Age of Ultron.

He talked about his process voicing the Hulk, which he considers a lot of work compared to Ruffalo’s more eloquent dialogue. Again, Ferrigno isn’t crazy about a well-spoken green giant:

"“Doing voiceover is very hard, because when you’re doing voice work, I can’t do a scene with [another actor], I have to improvise. So when I did the voice for the film, they had me in a dark room. They only told me about the scene, so I had to improvise. I couldn’t talk for two days afterwards, because [the voice] comes from inside the chest, the strong bellow when the Hulk roars. It’s a challenge, it’s work. But I had to almost yell and talk like the Hulk thinks and feels. And now in this new film, the Hulk is having dialogue conversations, I think it basically just spoiled it.”"

Reactions to Hulk’s arc from Infinity War to Endgame are mixed, but Avengers: Endgame managed to pull in $2.79 billion worldwide anyway. The film is currently on demand and Blu-ray with talk of Oscar contention.