Mark Ruffalo Bulked Up For Wrestling Role While Steve Carell Spooked Actors On Set Of 'Foxcatcher'

The inspiration for “Foxcatcher” came to director Bennett Miller eight years ago in an envelope stuffed with newspaper clippings. He had recently wrapped up his first feature narrative, “Capote,” starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, and was looking for a new project.

And within reading one paragraph of the first article, he was hooked.

They told the story of Olympic Gold Medal-winning wrestlers Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum) and his revered brother, Dave (Mark Ruffalo), as they fell into the lap of psychotic multimillionaire John du Pont (Steve Carell), which Mr. Ruffalo and Mr. Miller discussed following the 133-minute screening on Saturday night at Guild Hall in East Hampton during the 22nd annual Hamptons International Film Festival.

1. Every moment from the film is as accurate as possible. It does not simplify and it does not speculate.

“All of this happened,” Mr. Miller said. “It’s a very truthful film, to their characters and to, essentially, what happened. I prefer to leave it at that and to create a means to view something you can think about.”

2. Steve Carell was avoided on set.

“It was repulsive, it was creepy—and purposefully so,” Mr. Ruffalo said of his co-star’s doctored appearance. “Any aspect of Steve was completely gone. It was very strange because when we were on set, I rarely ever talked to him. I maybe had two conversations with him while we were on set for the entire shoot. It just sort of happened that way. He liked to stay away and it was always very awkward talking to him. And, partially, I think Steve kept to himself. But he would tell you today that people ran away from him. He’s incredible.”

3. Mr. Ruffalo pointed out that he was a wrestler from seventh to eleventh grade—“So I had that going for me,” he said somewhat sarcastically, though he was a freestyle state champion—and had to unlearn everything he ever knew. Dave Schultz was left-handed. He’s a righty. And the discrepancies didn’t stop there.

“Dave, in the film, was pretty much at the height of his power at 33, 34 years old. And I was 46 and feeling every minute over 36 years old,” Mr. Ruffalo grimaced. “Bennett really made it clear that he wanted us to really embody these people and we knew we were going to have to wrestle. I had to put on about 30 pounds. I’m a slight man and Dave’s a lot bigger than me. And if I had any chance of wrestling Channing Tatum with any credibility at all, I had to put on a lot of muscle.

“I remember, I turned to Bennett once and said, ‘Hey Bennett, is this too much?’ and he said, ‘Listen, we’re either going to go all the way or we’re not going to go at all. And so I think you go all the way.’ And I’m so glad you had the wisdom to say to do that.”

Modestly, Mr. Miller murmured, “It looked really good, that’s all.”