Mark Ruffalo Breaks Down How He Pulled Woody Harrelson Out of a 'Melee' at a Bar

While chatting with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson on their podcast Where Everybody Knows Your Name, Mark Ruffalo spoke about the time he physically pulled Harrelson out of a bar fight in New Orleans.

“We were shooting Now You See Me in New Orleans, completely on the streets,” Ruffalo said, referring to 2023 heist movie in which he co-starred with Harrelson. ”Totally wild, capturing stuff on a long lens, getting dragged into bars during the middle of a scene. … We were out one night, and it was a packed place. And a woman came up to [Woody] and she said, ‘Oh my God, I love you so much.’ And Woody put his hand on her arm, and he said, ‘Oh, thank you. Thank you, darling.’”

After Harrelson put his arm on the woman who approached him, a man came up and immediately started a scene. “This guy comes over and he pushes her out of the way and he shoves Woody,” he continued. “Woody’s first response is not shove someone back, but immediately punch them in the face. Which, is the right thing to do, by the way. … But then a whole melee broke out in this bar.”

Ruffalo said he was “in the middle” of this “melee,” and things were looking worse by the second. “I grabbed [Woody], and I pulled [him] out,” he said. “I was like, ‘This could be fun, but it also just could go so disastrously wrong. Because you and I might be able to handle ourselves, but the rest of the folks we were with? I don’t think so.’”

Watch the clip from the interview up top.