Ebon Moss-Bachrach received 'generous' text from Mark Ruffalo before shooting Fantastic Four

Ebon Moss-Bachrach received a "generous" text from Mark Ruffalo to ease his nerves about acting via motion capture in The Fantastic Four: First Steps.

The Bear actor stars alongside Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby and Joseph Quinn in Marvel's latest Fantastic Four, in which he plays Ben Grimm/The Thing, whose body is covered in rock-like material.

Moss-Bachrach acted as the character on set using performance-capture technology, and The Thing was brought to life using digital visual effects in post-production.

The Girls actor admitted he felt some "insecurity" about working in this way, but fellow Marvel star Ruffalo calmed his nerves with a thoughtful text.

"I got a really nice, very long, thorough text from Mark Ruffalo because my character is performance-capture, and I was a little anxious about that," Moss-Bachrach said during a press conference, according to video footage on X.

"It's something I've never done before, and Mark immediately - I don't know, he somehow got wind of my insecurity about it - and he was really generous and sort of went through the whole thing with me."

Ruffalo has plenty of experience with performance-capture technology as he has played Bruce Banner/The Hulk in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) since 2012's The Avengers. The actor appears as himself when the character is in his Bruce form; however, he is given a computer-generated appearance when he becomes the giant green Hulk.

Moss-Bachrach previously said at San Diego Comic-Con in July 2024 that Ruffalo helped "demystify the process of motion-capture" in a "very nice text".

Fantastic Four: First Steps will be released in cinemas on 25 July.