We’re just a couple of weeks away from the release of Avengers: Endgame, meaning that notorious spoiler source Mark Ruffalo only has to watch what he says for a little while longer. In the meantime, the Bruce Banner actor has shared a few thoughts on one of the most famous instances where he lived up to his reputation.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Ruffalo was asked what the biggest thing he’s ever spoiled from a movie was. His co-star Scarlett Johansson was the first to answer:
“What about when you streamed the first 10 minutes of Thor: Ragnarok.”
Robert Downey Jr. then backed her up, adding, “That’s gotta be it,” before Ruffalo recalled getting into trouble for the incident:
“That was the one that got me the call from up high.”
Thor: Ragnarok star Chris Hemsworth, however, argued that Ruffalo’s accidental leak was actually a shrewd bit of marketing:
“Wait, wait, that was actually genius. There might be some strategy there, because [the audience] laughed so hard during that [footage]. All [viewers] could hear was laughing. They went, ‘It must be good!’”
Sure enough, Ruffalo then explained how the response to his slip-up at Marvel was surprisingly supportive:
“It sort of turned around on me. Because when I came to work on Monday [on the set of Endgame] everyone ran up to me. I thought they were coming to scream at me — Barry [Curtis, ‘supreme security at Marvel Studios’], he threw his arms around me. ‘That was genius! We got more press than we could have possibly paid for!’”
While the Thor: Ragnarok leak may be the most famous example of Ruffalo spoiling a Marvel movie, it certainly wasn’t his last case of accidental intel. During an interview back in 2017 with Good Morning America, for example, the actor outright admitted that “everybody dies” at the end of Avengers: Infinity War, much to the horror of his co-star Don Cheadle.
More recently, Ruffalo seems to have gotten better at watching what he says, but he’s certainly made a few comments lately that might at least turn out to be spoilers in retrospect. Regardless, the actor only has to keep his mouth shut for sixteen more days, before Avengers: Endgame hits theaters on April 26th.