Mark Ruffalo revealed on the “Where Everybody Knows Your Name” podcast that he saved Woody Harrelson from an epic bar fight when the two were in New Orleans filming 2013’s “Now You See Me,” Louis Leterrier’s heist thriller about a group of illusionists who carry out robberies. Ruffalo played an FBI agent trying to capture the group.
“We were shooting ‘Now You See Me’ in New Orleans, completely on the streets. Totally wild,” Ruffalo said (via Entertainment Weekly). “Capturing stuff on a long lens, getting dragged into bars during the middle of a scene, like in the middle of Mardi Gras.”
Ruffalo and Danson stayed out after filming wrapped for the day and went to “a packed place” to grab a drink when things escalated.
“A woman came up to [Woody] and she said, ‘Oh my God, I love you so much,’” Ruffalo said. “Woody put his hand on her arm and he said, ‘Oh, thank you. Thank you, darling.’ And this guy comes over and he pushes her outta the way, and he shoves Woody. Bad. Because Woody’s first response is not ‘shove someone back,’ but ‘immediately punch them in the face.’ Which is the right thing to do, by the way. It’s the absolute right thing to do. But then a whole melee broke out in this bar. I was in the middle of it and it was turning into a— it was getting to become a whole thing… And I grabbed [Woody].”
“I grabbed [Woody] and I pulled him out,” Ruffalo continued. “Because I was like, ‘This could be fun, but it also just could go so disastrously wrong because you and I might be able to handle ourselves but the rest of the folks we were with… I don’t think so.”
Ruffalo and Harrelson starred in “Now You See Me” alongside Jesse Eisenberg, Mélanie Laurent, Isla Fisher, Dave Franco, Morgan Freeman and more. The movie was a box office hit with $351 million worldwide and spawned a franchise that led to 2016’s “Now You See Me 2” and the upcoming “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t,” in theaters Nov. 14.
Watch Ruffalo’s interview on the “Where Everybody Knows Your Name” podcast in the video below.
