Why I love Mark Ruffalo’s per­for­mance in Zodiac

You can find out a lot about a per­son from the film role they auto­mat­i­cal­ly asso­ciate with Mark Ruf­fa­lo. Women who grew up in the mid-noughties? He’s Matt from the sem­i­nal teen movie 13 Going on 30. Those who were knee-high in 2012 when The Avengers came out? He’s the Incred­i­ble Hulk. Over the course of his career he’s been nom­i­nat­ed for three Acad­e­my Awards, and his non-threat­en­ing brand of earnest, doe-eyed reas­sur­ance has made him a Hol­ly­wood main­stay. When he’s not mak­ing movies he’s cam­paign­ing for change or admir­ing Paul Rudd – it’s easy to under­stand why audi­ences love him, and why he’s ordi­nar­i­ly cast in rom-com roles that play to his crinkly-eyed crooked-smile charm.

One notable ear­ly out­lier in his fil­mog­ra­phy is his per­for­mance as Inspec­tor Dave Toschi in David Fincher’s 2007 crime thriller, Zodi­ac. Based on the inves­ti­ga­tion into the epony­mous ser­i­al killer who ter­rorised San Fran­cis­co in the late ​’60s and ​’70s, the film paved the way for Fincher’s future for­ays into crime thrillers, notably his most recent, Mind­hunter. It’s a metic­u­lous­ly craft­ed slow-burn which pro­vides a unique insight into a case that has fright­ened and fas­ci­nat­ed true crime enthu­si­asts for decades, hon­ing in on the frus­trat­ing red tape which stunt­ed the inves­ti­ga­tion, as well as how the case changed the lives of three men at the cen­tre of it: Robert Gray­smith, Paul Avery, and Dave Toschi.

Pri­or to Zodi­ac, Toschi was already a fas­ci­nat­ing char­ac­ter – he was the inspi­ra­tion for Clint Eastwood’s Har­ry Calla­han in Dirty Har­ry, and Steve McQueen’s styl­is­tic ref­er­ence for Bul­litt. In a 1993 inter­view with Empire, George Lucas even revealed he’d named a loca­tion on Tatooine ​‘Tosche Sta­tion’ after him, hav­ing been obsessed with the case as a teenag­er and sym­pa­this­ing with the much-harangued police inspec­tor. In bring­ing Robert Graysmith’s book chart­ing the Zodi­ac case to the big screen, Finch­er reignit­ed inter­est and brought the sto­ry to a new gen­er­a­tion of cinema-goers.

Finch­er sought to cast Ruf­fa­lo on the advice of Jen­nifer Anis­ton, who had worked with him on The Grad­u­ate spin-off Rumour Has It…, though Ruf­fa­lo was ini­tial­ly not inter­est­ed in the part. Fol­low­ing rewrites he came aboard as the bow tie-wear­ing, shoul­der hol­ster-sport­ing San Fran­cis­co detec­tive – the grumpy foil to Jake Gyllenhaal’s naïve Gray­smith and Robert Downey Jr’s trou­bled Avery. In a rather unfor­tu­nate twist, Zodi­ac had to con­tend with Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood and the Coen broth­ers’ No Coun­try for Old Men at the Oscars, mean­ing it missed out on for­mal recog­ni­tion, but who needs gold­en stat­ues when Ruffalo’s wear­ing a navy turtle­neck and scowl­ing at an evi­dence envelope?

When Toschi is intro­duced in the nar­ra­tive, he’s rude­ly awak­ened in the mid­dle of the night by the call that announces the Zodiac’s third attack. Hav­ing bro­ken the bed­side light while try­ing to get to the phone, he sighs into the receiv­er, ​“Who­ev­er this is, you owe me a new lamp.” Ruffalo’s world-weari­ness under­lines the film’s por­tray­al of police work as frus­trat­ing­ly mun­dane – a stark con­trast from the glam­our of typ­i­cal Hol­ly­wood por­tray­als, exem­pli­fied in the likes of LA Con­fi­den­tial and Heat.

In the fol­low­ing scene, sport­ing a Colum­bo mac, he dis­sects the scene of Paul Stine’s mur­der in a method­i­cal, rou­tine man­ner, and then asks, non­cha­lant, if any of his col­leagues ​“have any ani­mal crack­ers”. At this ear­ly point in the nar­ra­tive, appre­hen­sion of the killer still seems like­ly – Toschi’s all busi­ness, par­tic­u­lar­ly when it comes to clash­ing with pesky reporter Paul Avery over the mat­ter of the Zodi­ac let­ters being sent to the San Fran­cis­co Chron­i­cle. ​“Have you ever thought Paul Avery might be the Zodi­ac?” an infor­mant asks him. ​“Fre­quent­ly,” quips Toschi in response.

As time drags on with the case still open, we see Toschi’s increas­ing frus­tra­tion – both with Paul Avery’s own inves­ti­ga­tion into the Zodi­ac, and his own fail­ure to appre­hend the killer. The clos­est he comes is inter­view­ing Arthur Leigh Allen – the prime sus­pect in the case. In this scene, Ruffalo’s soft-spo­ken nature most appar­ent, as Toschi serves pri­mar­i­ly as an observ­er while his col­leagues con­duct the inter­view, and earn Allen’s scorn for their approach. Sens­ing this, Toschi polite­ly asks to take a look at Allen’s watch (a poten­tial clue, giv­en its Zodi­ac brand­ing) and uses the inter­ac­tion to bring the con­ver­sa­tion back to the interview.

It’s not just Ruffalo’s resem­blance to his real-life coun­ter­part which makes his por­tray­al of Toschi so com­pelling. His posi­tion­ing of Toschi between the spi­ralling obses­sion of Gray­smith and Avery’s retreat into alco­holism fol­low­ing his involve­ment in the case presents audi­ences with a por­trait of a decent man beset by extra­or­di­nary cir­cum­stances, sto­ic even when he him­self is accused of being respon­si­ble for send­ing the Zodi­ac let­ters in order to drum up pub­lic­i­ty for the case.

“You know what the worst part of this is?” he admits, hav­ing stormed out of the office fol­low­ing the announce­ment that Arthur Leigh Allen won’t be pur­sued as a sus­pect. ​“I can’t tell if I want­ed it to be Allen so bad because I actu­al­ly thought it was him, or I just want all this to be over.” He sighs heav­i­ly, lean­ing against the wall. While Paul Avery’s phys­i­cal decline as time drags on, from sharp-suit­ed jour­nal­ist to dishev­elled alco­holic, Robert Graysmith’s increas­ing iso­la­tion is seen through the break­down of his mar­riage, Ruffalo’s por­tray­al of what Toschi los­es to the Zodi­ac is more sub­tle. He might wear shoul­der hol­sters at all times, but he nev­er has cause in the film to fire his gun – Toschi’s not the gun-tot­ing Har­ry Calla­han in this story.

There’s a sense the Zodi­ac case haunts him – he walks out of a screen­ing of Dirty Har­ry and smokes a cig­a­rette in the lob­by, star­ing at the ground. A resigned, irri­tat­ed accep­tance comes across. When Gray­smith offers his reas­sur­ance, Toschi sighs. ​“Pal, they’re already mak­ing movies about it.” Even­tu­al­ly, his frus­tra­tion with Graysmith’s Zodi­ac obses­sion devel­ops into a strange admi­ra­tion. Over break­fast, while Gray­smith walks him through his years of unre­lent­ing research, Toschi stares at him, incred­u­lous, with a small smile play­ing on his tired fea­tures. He says, in a voice near enough a whis­per, half-admir­ing half-incred­u­lous, ​“Jesus Christ.”

Hav­ing gone on to play mur­dered Olympic ath­lete Dave Schultz in Ben­nett Miller’s Fox­catch­er and the dogged jour­nal­ist Michael Rezen­des in Tom McCarthy’s Spot­light, Zodi­ac paved the way for Ruffalo’s future stand-out bio­graph­i­cal roles. His qui­et com­mand of James Vanderbilt’s script and the per­fect posi­tion­ing of Toschi as a man belea­guered by the real­i­ty of police work as opposed to its pop cul­ture por­tray­al. With­out a smok­ing gun, Fincher’s film relies total­ly on the strength of its char­ac­ters for suc­cess. Ruffalo’s unique com­bi­na­tion of earnest­ness and brusque­ness brings Toschi to life.