Mark Ruffalo has long been paranoid about his drinking water. His home, tucked in the Catskill Mountains along the Delaware River, is outfitted with an elaborate water filtration system even though his well water is some of the cleanest in the nation.
As it turned out, Ruffalo had read the story when it was published, and instantly snapped up the rights. But he still had to secure the trust of the article’s subject. The farmer, Wilbur Tennant, and his family had sold 66 acres of the cattle farm to DuPont in the early ’80s when they were hard up for cash. In the years since the sale, Tennant’s cows had begun to die off by the dozen — blood was running from their noses, their teeth were blackened and their organs discolored.
In Parkersburg, Bilott and Ruffalo were surprised to discover the local allegiance that remains toward the company. “To play against the heroism took a lot of discipline for me,” he said. “I’ve spoken at these rallies. I’ve been a rabble rouser. I’ve been righteous. But that wasn’t the nature of this. So I always had to pull back into thoughtfulness and modesty.”
“Listen, there is a part of you that’s like, ‘Oh, no, he’s watching. He is going to think I’m [messing] this up,’” Ruffalo acknowledged. ”But on a higher level, this is your source material. If he doesn’t think it’s right, then what’s wrong with that? All I’m doing is protecting my ego here, really.”
“It’s certainly not the company that any of us know,” continued Doyle. “I’ve been with DuPont for 25 years myself. ... The behaviors that you might see in there are certainly not the behaviors that I witnessed at any point in my career.”
Oh, I definitely care what MarkRuffalo thinks.
no one cares what he thinks