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Mark Ruffalo joked Joss Whedon should offer Joaquin Phoenix the role of the Hulk before The Avengers began filming.
The 47-year-old actor has landed the job of a lifetime as the green monster in the Marvel franchise, starring alongside the likes of Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark / Iron Man and Chris Hemsworth as Thor.
He's now an invaluable part of the cast in both the 2012 original and latest sequel Avengers: Age of Ultron, but director Joss admits the star had his doubts at first.
"Mark spent the first week of both films coming up to me after each take going, 'It's not too late to recast,'" he laughed to Rolling Stone. "He's saying, 'I know you've got Joaquin Phoenix on the phone.' I think Mark is maybe the best living American film actor, and part of that is for a reason that he makes it harder for him in these movies: he's incapable of an untruth. He just always is the person he's playing. It's dazzling."
One of the reasons he may have felt threatened by Joaquin is because the 40-year-old landed what was initially meant to be Mark's role in 2002 movie Signs alongside Mel Gibson, as Mark had suffered a brain tumor at the time.
Mark reveals he was initially hesitant to sign onto Joss' project before the screenplay for the first flick had even been finished, but his future co-star is what boosted his confidence.
"I was scared, a little bit. [Robert] opened the way for this kind of indie character-actor approach, totally off the radar of what you would consider to be your classic movie star," Mark gushed. "And I thought, 'Can I do that? Can I be as clever and charming and facile?' It was like, 'Downey!' - you know?"