The Place Beyond the Pines (2013)

I imagine that it would be a dream job for an actor to play the parts of twin brothers Dominick and Thomas Birdsey in I Know This Much Is True. They are both deeply complex and multifaceted characters, while also being starkly different from each other. There is so much room there for an actor to play within, and to shine as they give two nuanced and powerful performances. In the case of HBO’s six part limited series, the lucky actor who gets to take this on is Mark Ruffalo.

I have been a fan of Ruffalo for a long time. He first popped up on my radar when he debuted as Bruce Banner in The Avengers (2012). Since then, I have been nothing short of amazed by his truly raw talent. His performances in movies such as Begin Again (2013), Foxcatcher (2014), and Spotlight (2015) — the latter two garnering him Oscar nominations — cemented him for me as one of my favorite working actors. Anything that Mark Ruffalo is in will immediately have my attention.

In I Know This Much Is True, Dominick (Ruffalo) struggles to care for his paranoid schizophrenic brother, Thomas (Ruffalo). The more Dominick fights to help his brother, the more he feels he is losing the war. It’s within his moments of absolute loss and devastation that we see who Dominick truly is as a person.

As the series progresses, we also come to learn more about Dominick’s past. His relationships with his brother, his stepfather Ray (John Procaccino), his ex-wife Dessa (Kathryn Hahn), and his mother (Melissa Leo) all have secrets that are slowly unearthed. That is the biggest aspect of I Know This Much Is True that makes it as compelling as it is: the secrets and mysteries that take their time to be fully revealed.