Mark Ruffalo: ‘Hollywood has been white supremacist for 100 years’

Mark Ruffalo is angry. “Donald Trump is public enemy number one,” says the man who plays Hulk in the Avengers films, leaning forward in his chair. “Everything that comes out of his mouth is a lie. This dude is standing in the way of anything significant happening in the world as far as climate change is concerned. It’s f***ing terrifying and it keeps me up at night. Most people don’t realise what’s coming. Countries are freaking out about Syrians coming, a few thousand Syrians. We are approaching mass extinctions, food systems failing, hundreds of millions of displaced people looking for places that are hospitable.” He pauses, breathes. “In my country, half of the political system doesn’t believe in [climate change], in science. I’m inviting the rest of the world to get involved in our next election, because the fate of the world is in the f***ing balance. And you can print that.”

Lacking the protective carapace that film stars tend to bring to interviews – that mix of rehearsed anecdotes and smiling reticence – Ruffalo is as passionate and politically minded as he is charming. At 52, he looks great. Dressed in a white shirt, his hair tousled and peppered with grey, he is trim and tanned, with a kind, crumpled face and dark penetrating eyes that are at once concerned and unsuspicious. He hasn’t shaved.

We’re in a hotel in central London to discuss his excellent new film Dark Waters. Based on a New York Times long read, this is the true story of corporate defence attorney-turned-environmental activist Robert Bilott and his struggle to expose the DuPont chemical company, which used toxic materials in a number of its products despite knowing full well how harmful they were. Ruffalo, a long-time environmental activist