Mark Ruffalo hits his thespic stride

ANTHONY Mackie and Mark Ruffalo. Photo by George Pimentel

Toronto, Canada—Mark Ruffalo is transforming. With a string of films, from the lauded AIDS drama, “The Normal Heart,” to the musical rebirth tale, “Begin Again,” to the upcoming wrestling drama, “Foxcatcher,” the man many know as the Hulk has muscled together a shape-shifting string of roles.

“You work hard and stay positive and, eventually, all the stars will align,” Ruffalo said in an interview. “I feel like I’m in one of those moments, where everything converges at one time. It’s been an interesting few years. I feel like I had a midlife thing going on: People close to me died. It’s been a reflective time and a time for growth, so where I’m at right now feels like, ‘OK, I’m coming out of the other side of that—and I survived it.”’

Ruffalo has two films at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival: Bennett Miller’s “Foxcatcher” and the family drama, “Infinitely Polar Bear.”

Busy year

The films cap a busy year for the actor, which includes the “Avengers” sequel, “Age of Ultron.”

Ruffalo, 46, has long been widely admired for his warm sincerity and emotional openness as an actor. He’s worked steadily, mixing in character roles and leading parts since his breakout in Kenneth Lonergan’s tender-sibling drama, “You Can Count On Me” (2001), including an Oscar nomination for 2010’s “The Kids Are All Right.”

Ruffalo describes his recent years, which also involved his struggle with a brain tumor and balancing his work with his wife, Sunrise Coigney, and their three children, as “a roiling dis-assemblage.”

What’s striking about Ruffalo’s current streak is his physical stretching, something that only begins with his Hulk morphing in “The Avengers.” As a kind of stand-in for Kramer in “The Normal Heart,” he plays an impassioned gay man in the early ’80s. In “Foxcatcher,” he plays Olympic wrestler Dave Schultz, a role for which he added muscle mass and grew a beard.

The transformation comes through most off-the-mat in Schultz’s physically affectionate bearing. It’s a fitting part for Ruffalo, who wrestled in high school before dedicating himself to acting.