Mark Ruffalo’s in ‘I Know This Much Is True’

The combination of cutting-edge motion capture technology, a bond between actors and Stella Adler’s training allowed Mark Ruffalo to pull off the impressive double-act of playing twin brothers in the HBO limited series “I Know This Much Is True.”

In the adaptation of the 1998 novel by Wally Lamb, which debuts Sunday, Ruffalo portrays brothers Dominick and Thomas Birdsey. Dominick is a blue collar, guy’s guy construction worker while Thomas is chubby and deeply sensitive man, who has been institutionalized due to mental illness. 

With Ruffalo playing two characters, the six-episode series, written and directed by Derek Cianfrance, had to be shot out of sequence. When Ruffalo first approached Cianfrance about collaborating on “I Know This Much Is True,” the actor admitted that he wasn’t aware of many instances where one actor playing twins really worked well in an adult drama.

 “Usually, it feels like the actor has just run off and put a wig on and changed clothes,” Ruffalo tells Variety. “You never really feel like there’s two distinctly separate people there.”

Both men were wary of falling into obvious gimmicks.

“I was worried about embarking on some big technical movie,” said Cianfrance. “There’ve been so many movies and shows about twins — Cronenberg’s ‘Dead Ringers,’ Kevin Kline in ‘Dave,’ and that James Franco show ‘The Deuce’ — where you spend half the time as a viewer trying to figure out how they did it and what the trick was.”

Instead, Ruffalo and Cianfrance worked out a plan to use facial motion capture technology and actor Gabe Fazio (“A Star Is Born”) to help Ruffalo pull the double shift.

First, Ruffalo shot all of his scenes as Dominick, which required him to loose 15 pounds. He become wiry and assumed an ultra-masculine air. On set, Cianfrance says, Ruffalo could be “angsty” and “a bear to wrestle with.” But Ruffalo’s attitude completely changed when he was back on set, assuming the role of Thomas.

“When he was Thomas, he was so fragile that I had to approach him with kid gloves,” says Cianfrance. “It was like working with two different people. That takes so much skill and commitment.”

For Thomas, whose body is bloated by the heavy pharmaceutical medications he takes to control his illness, Ruffalo took a six-week break to put on about 30 pounds. The acting challenge for Ruffalo was making sure he was in the heads of both characters even while shooting one at a time.

“I had to have both characters in my pocket when I walked on set every day,” Ruffalo says.

The physical transformation was startling.

“The crew gasped on Mark’s first day back on set,” says Cianfrance. “Your physical body can really effect your internal self. Mark came back as a completely different person.”

“I Know This Much Is True” has relatively few scenes with Thomas and Dominick together. For those, Ruffalo worked with Fazio, who also gained and lost 30 pounds during the course of production. In one scene where Thomas and Dominick embrace, Ruffalo’s motion-capture face was pasted on to Fazio’s body.

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