The Avengers Director Speaks

Joss Whedon talks about casting  Mark Ruffalo as the Bruce Banner, and the other casts of Marvel's Mightiest Heroes

Here is just a portion from About.com....

And Mark [Ruffalo], what makes him the perfect Hulk?

Joss Whedon: "To me, I wanted Mark because he connects with you. He is a guy who you feel that he is you and he reaches out to you in a way that I don't feel the performances as Banner have really done. And this also has to do with the way the narrative works, but I feel I wanted to come at Banner and The Hulk visually from a new place. And I wanted somebody that had the quality that Mark has which is somebody who has taken hits from life but is not defined by that. He's taken a hit and he stood back up. He's not thinking about himself necessarily. Mark is a very giving guy and actor. When he looks at me onscreen I'm like, 'That's me. That's the guy.' And he's like that as a person. And just talking to him about The Hulk I learned so much more about the character of Bruce Banner than I had ever even thought of. It was an instinct I thought no one would support. The studio were completely into it. Robert Downey Jr was super supportive. And you know everybody welcomed him into the fold and I was so excited because, to me, he's going to be the first Banner."

You're going to have to balance all these personalities and all these characters, and make it so that the fans are really going to appreciate it, how tough is that?

Joss Whedon: "You know, in a way it's tough and in a way it's the easiest thing in the world because that's what the movie's about. These people don't belong together. There's friction, there;s tension, there's drama... Oh, wait, I need that for my storytelling so it's perfect. There's no reason that this crew should be together except that we need them to be. And so I got very excited by this because of how odd it is."

If you had a chance to actually do more casting of it, do you think the casting that's in place is exactly who you would have chosen for each role?

Joss Whedon: "Oh hells yeah. I'd like to say that I came up with [Jeremy] Renner but they had Renner in their sights. I spent weeks - because it didn't look like that was going to happen - I spent weeks trying to think of somebody else and I couldn't get him out of my head. I'd try and make lists and they're like - it looked like I was getting married. 'Jeremy Renner, Jeremy Renner, Jeremy Renner, Jeremy Renner. Mrs Josh Renner.' It was like I had a crush. They just nail it. It's one of the things I love about Marvel. They take chances. It doesn't seem like Robert Downey was a chance, but at the time he was. And the first time I saw Kevin Feige after he cast him I was like, 'Congratulations on being so smart.'"

We haven't seen Chris Evans and we haven't seen Chris Hemsworth, so what can we expect out of those two?

Joss Whedon: "Well you know Chris is a really sweet, decent guy who's really excited to be playing a really sweet, decent guy. You know, they both have the qualities of the person. Chris Hemsworth is obviously...he's not as arrogant as Thor, but he is as tall. And you know he does sort of wake up every day going, 'The world is mine. How nice. Look at all the tiny people.' I mean, he's a dear. He's a sweet, sweet boy but at the same time, he's bigger and handsomer than a person is. So they bring the qualities. Obviously they've got acting chops, but they inhabit the parts and that makes it so much more exciting."