When many heard that Robert Downey Jr. and Mark Ruffalo were paired for Actors on Actors, they rightfully said “Science bros!” to themselves. My brain instantly went to Zodiac. My favorite David Fincher movie, it is the film that I often connect with the two actors because it is a staple in their careers and one I use to highlight their talent.
The conversation between the two did not disappoint and went through their time together in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and talked about both Downey’s work in Oppenheimer as Lewis Strauss and Ruffalo’s role as Duncan in the Yorgos Lanthimos film Poor Things. But what made me the happiest was their instantaneous inclusion of Zodiac in in the conversation.
As soon as they started to talk, they brought up how they knew of each other in the ’90s but that they really met when working on the David Fincher film, with Downey saying, “We really met when Fincher cast us in Zodiac.”
Ruffalo confirmed, saying, “That movie, what a wild ride that was.”
But something that I have consistently said as someone who is a fan of both Christopher Nolan’s work and David Fincher’s is that the two directors have a unique style, but their tones can often go hand in hand, and I longed for a day when the two would collaborate on a project with Nolan writing a script that Fincher could direct. Downey brought up that he called Fincher after working with Nolan and talked about how the two had a similar perspective on filmmaking and had a certain way of doing things, but also brought up how Zodiac is still important to so many.
“I called Fincher recently because, in retrospect, everything changes. It’s like in fifteen years later you have such a different perspective on stuff,” Downey said. “For me, even after working with Nolan, I developed a new respect for Fincher. But I remember that was maybe the first time we really had our feet put to the fire with an exacting director, a real director who does things a certain way. And the result was that people still say that ‘You know, that scene with you and Ruffalo in the parking lot’ or ‘Those scenes with blah blah blah’ and I kind of just have a vague memory of it all.”
“Me too but that is on the top level of so many people’s favorites,” Ruffalo said. And it’s the truth, to see these two recognizing that Zodiac still is so important means the world to me.
It all comes back to David Fincher and Zodiac
Talking about your favorite David Fincher movie is like talking about your favorite Christopher Nolan movie. It’s easy for me but impossible for many others to pick one. (See what I did there?) Trying to pigeonhole a director like Fincher isn’t easy but a movie like Zodiac really stands out as a movie that was trying to solve an impossible case.
It served as a way of bringing Downey back into the limelight, highlighted Ruffalo as a serious actor versus whatever typecast of a romantic comedy lead people wanted to put him into, and continued to push the envelope for what a crime drama could be. Zodiac continues to be one of the few glimpses into the true crime genre that doesn’t glorify the killer, and maybe that’s because we don’t know who the Zodiac Killer is to this day, but it makes for a fascinating look at those who were trying to stop him.
I could listen to Downey and Ruffalo talk about this movie all day long because it is genuinely one of my favorite movies, and seeing them recognize that this is still such an important movie not only to their careers but to fans of Fincher really just made me very happy. It shows that they see how fans of Zodiac still engage with the movie, sixteen years later.
(featured image: Variety/YouTube)
