Sam Brigger
speaker
1,127 appearances
24 recordings
1 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard 6 Jun
Sam Brigger’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 8 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 2.
Appearances
What were some of the mannerisms that you saw that you tried to emulate in your performance?
Mark, I wanted to ask you a little bit about your childhood. It sounds like your family moved around a bit, like you were born in Wisconsin, but then you spent some time in Virginia and then California, right? That's right. I think your family was Catholic, but it sounds like there were some active seekers of religion in the household. Is that correct? Yeah.
Well, you actually were saved by the televangelist Jimmy Swigert, right? I was. Was that on TV? No.
So you fell over too?
Did you feel bad? Did you feel like you were kind of lying or something?
If you're just joining us, our guest is actor Mark Ruffalo. We'll be back after a short break. This is Fresh Air.
This is Fresh Air. Our guest is actor Mark Ruffalo, who was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in the film Poor Things. How did you get into acting? Is that something you felt good at right away? Did it come easy naturally to you?
That sounds like a very vulnerable moment for you.
Yeah. At some point you decided to make a go of it, right? Like you must have been getting some encouragement from her and then from other people to sort of get you to take a chance and to move to L.A. eventually.
Was Stella Adler teaching there when you were there?
If you're just joining us, we're speaking with actor Mark Ruffalo. More after a break. This is Fresh Air.
This is Fresh Air. Our guest is actor Mark Ruffalo, who was nominated for an Oscar for his performance in the movie Poor Things. So your big break was the 2000 Kenneth Lonergan movie, You Can Count on Me, which I watched again this week. It's such a terrific movie. You play Terry. You've got a sister, Sammy, who's played by Laura Linney. And you guys were orphaned early in life.
Your parents die in a car crash. So what did you think of this character when you read the script? He's often a jerk, but he's also a pretty good guy. And and tries to do the right thing a lot. And he's just been damaged by this awful tragedy when he was a kid.
Well, he made a good decision casting you.
Great performance.
This is your big break, and you start getting asked to do a lot of roles. But then everything just – you have to go on halt. You've talked about this a bunch, but you were diagnosed with a brain tumor, which turned out to be benign. You had to have this operation. You had to deal with all these side effects. You had to do all this rehabilitation. I mean, fortunately, you were able to –
to really get through it, but it took a while. And like, it just must've been, I mean, obviously it's a terrible thing to happen in your life, but just in terms of your career, like that must've been so discouraging because like here you are just breaking out and then your body just shuts it all down. Like, did that experience make you forever like suspicious of success? Like,
You might be good now, but you don't know what's coming around the corner.
Yeah, well, I was actually really interested in that particular aspect of this because, like, as we said, you know, there's some spiritual searchers in your family, right? Like, your grandmother became an evangelist after being Catholic, right? Your father joined the Baha'i religion. Like did this experience sort of alter the way you thought about spirituality or like even the soul or identity?
That's what I learned. Well, it's been a real pleasure speaking with you. Mark Ruffalo, thanks so much for coming on the show.
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