Mark Ruffalo Reveals The Real Reason Why Hulk Refused To Come Out In Avengers: Infinity War

While Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) was pretty much present in Avengers: Infinity War, Hulk was mostly a no-show, the Green Man refusing to take over and assist the Avengers in the fight to keep Thanos from completing all six Infinity Stones.

While most fans assume that Hulk's refusal to cooperate comes from his defeat at the hands of the Mad Titan earlier on in the film, Ruffalo reveals in an interview with Peter Melnick and Eddie Wilson on The Marvelists: The MCU podcast that Hulk was actually more scared of Banner than Thanos.

According to the actor, he and Infinity War's directors, Joe and Anthony Russo, all just wanted Banner to be the hero of the film for at least once.

"We went back and forth a lot on how to end the movie with Banner, and do we repeat the Hulk coming at the last minute or do we try something new?" he explained on the podcast."And I think at that point we were all thirsting to have Banner be his own hero for once."

Diving deeper into the topic, Ruffalo said that there's been some sort of tension going on between the Hulk and Banner. After Avengers: Age of Ultron, thanks to the help of director Joss Whedon, the actor realized that Hulks greatest fear is actually Bruce Banner himself.

"Joss asked ‘What is Hulk afraid of?' And that was a hard thing for me to answer, because what is the strongest, fiercest thing in the universe afraid of? What could he possibly?" the actor went on. "And then I realized its Banner. The only thing Hulk is afraid of is Banner."

This fear of his human alter ego continues to play out in Hulk's story arc in the Marvel Cinematic Universe – we see it most clearly in Thor: Ragnarok and bits in Infinity War.

"And so that's become something we've been riffing on since Avengers 2. We played with a lot in Ragnarok, and it continues to be teased out in Infinity War 1 and Infinity War 2," Ruffalo said during the interview.

The only question now is whether or not Hulk and Bruce are finally going to come to terms with sharing the same body. Hopefully, the two finally deal with their internal struggle so that Hulk can come out and help the Avengers in Avengers 4.

Avengers 4 hits cinemas May 3, 2019.

Read: Mark Ruffalo Describes Avengers 4 Reshoots And Calls The Movie A "Living Organism"