00:00 (chimes)
00:02 - Please help me welcome to the stage,
00:04 Director David Fentcher!
00:06 (audience cheers)
00:10 - I did not go to Stella Adler,
00:19 so I'll be reading like an idiot.
00:22 A wise and funny thespian once regaled me
00:25 with the following he said, "Ah, sincerity.
00:29 "When you can fake that, you really got something."
00:33 We're all here today because we love Mark Ruffalo,
00:35 and I mean sincerely.
00:38 We love watching him, we love listening to him.
00:40 I do this for a living, and I could watch Mark Ruffalo
00:42 do his thing again and again and again and again.
00:47 It's also said that acting is reacting,
00:50 or distilled to its very essence,
00:52 that acting is in the listening,
00:55 the thoughtful human processing
00:56 of what one scene partner is saying and doing.
01:00 But this is often shortchanged and can become,
01:03 in lazy or cynical hands, the appearance of listening.
01:07 Mark Ruffalo never does this.
01:10 You won't catch Mark listening.
01:13 He is an endlessly, mercilessly emphatic being.
01:17 Mark Ruffalo is always in the process of hearing,
01:22 and it's an important distinction.
01:25 The characters he breathes life into
01:28 juggle many ideas at once.
01:30 They are caring about things
01:32 that may never be given screen time,
01:34 but will still exist under thick or thin skin
01:37 to inform the person in whole.
01:39 It is the alchemy of exceptional technique
01:43 and supreme generosity.
01:44 Stanley Kubrick is quoted as distilling
01:48 the complex and conflicted process of the actor at work
01:51 as just relax, and then really fucking concentrate.
01:56 (audience laughing)
01:58 Mark Ruffalo is the master of this,
02:00 one of cinema's true masters.
02:02 I'd put him in rarefied company with Spencer Tracy,
02:05 Montgomery Clift, or Gene Hackman
02:07 as perfect examples of motion picture actors.
02:11 You can't even see what they're doing from the fourth row.
02:14 The closeup was invented for them,
02:17 and they reward our eyes, ears, and ultimately our hearts,
02:21 if only we give them our time.
02:24 Mark, I adore you,
02:26 and I thank you for allowing me to pay tribute.
02:29 (audience applauding)
02:32 (speaking faintly)
02:35 Thank you.
02:36 (audience applauding)
02:39 (whooshing)
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