How Mark Ruffalo stepped in to save Woody Harrelson from a bar "melee" while they were filming their 2013 movie in New Orleans.
The secret weapon Woody Harrelson needed was Mark Ruffalo. The Marvel star recalled how, during the 2013 movie's production, he nearly avoided a bar brawl with his Now You See Me co-star.
"We were shooting Now You See Me the first one in New Orleans, completely on the streets. Totally wild," on October 15, Mark reminisced on Ted Danson and Woody's Where Everybody Knows Your Name podcast. "Capturing stuff on a long lens, getting dragged into bars during the middle of a scene, like in the middle of Mardi Gras."
According to the 57-year-old, one night when he and Woody, 64, stopped by a crowded pub, a woman approached Woody and declared her love for him.
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“Woody put his hand on her arm and he said, 'Oh, thank you. Thank you, darling,’” Mark said. “And this guy comes over, and he pushes her outta the way, and he shoves Woody."
"Oh, bad bad. Not good," said Ted, who has known Woody since he joined the Cheers cast in 1985.
Mark concurred. “Cause Woody's first response is not shoved someone back,” as the Avengers star pointed out, “but immediately punch them in the face."
Woody and Ted, 77, both chuckled when Mark mentioned that it was "the right thing to do, by the way."
“It's the absolute right thing to do,” he went on. “But then a whole melee broke out in this bar.”
Mark actually ended up in the center of the mayhem.
“And I grabbed you,” Woody verified the recollection when he stated it to him. "I grabbed you and I pulled you out.”
“I was like, 'This could be fun, but it also just could go so disastrously wrong,’” he added. “Because you and I might be able to handle ourselves but the rest of the folks we were with? I don't think so."
Mark's skill to defuse the situation impressed Ted. As he made a joke, "I'm embarrassed to say that I would've been the guy who said 'I'll be right back, I'll call someone. I’ll be right back.”
However, as Mark pointed out, he was a wrestler, so “We’re like a perfect combination.” with Woody handling the head and Mark taking the legs.
And on November 14, the third movie in the series, Now You See Me: Now You Don't, will bring that "perfect combination" back on the big screen.