Mark Ruffalo (Shutter Island) recently sat down for an interview and spoke a bit about playing Bruce Banner/The Hulk in the hotly anticipated Marvel Studios super-hero team-up, The Avengers. The film will be directed by Joss Whedon (Firefly, Serenity) and stars Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, and Mark Ruffalo (among others).

Ruffalo spoke to EW about taking on the duality of Bruce Banner.

“He’s a guy struggling with two sides of himself – the dark and the light – and everything he does in his life is filtered through issues of control. I grew up on the Bill Bixby TV series, which I thought was a really nuanced and real human way to look at The Hulk. I like that the part has those qualities.”

Ruffalo also touched on the hot-button issue of picking up the role after Marvel and Edward Norton (The Incredible Hulk) failed to reach an agreement for The Avengers.

“I’m a friend of Ed’s, and yeah, that wasn’t a great way for all that to go down. But the way I see it is that Ed has bequeathed this part to me. I look at it as my generation’s Hamlet.”