Mark Ruffalo Reminisces About Popping Channing Tatum’s Eardrum

Mark Ruffalo talked about slapping Channing Tatum around and popping his eardrum on the set of Foxcatcher. Ruffalo played Olympic gold medal-winning wrestler Dave Schultz — the older brother of Olympic gold medal-winning wrestler Mark Schultz, played by Tatum — in the 2014 biographical sports film also starring Steve Carell.

Entertainment Weekly reports that on the Thursday edition of Hot Ones, Poor Things star Mark Ruffalo chatted about slapping the Magic Mike star. “He did ask me to slap the s— out of him, and it was easy to do because he’d beaten the s— out of me so many times,” Ruffalo said in between bites of increasingly spicy hot wings. “It was four months of learning to wrestle together, and he has like 30 pounds on me. So when it came time to smack the s— out of him, I, like, came from Alabama.”

Tatum recounted the experience at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival. “I’m pretty sure I broke my hand in the movie in the training,” said Tatum. “You’re just throwing bodies around and you get caught in different angles.” During one scene, Tatum did ask Ruffalo to “slap the s–t” out of him and “get it over with.” Tatum continued, “He pops my eardrum. All of a sudden it’s just making a screeching noise. I can’t hear anything. Eardrums heal, so I’m fine.”

In the Same Interview, Mark Ruffalo Described Joaquin Phoenix as a “Great Roommate”

Years before he busted Channing Tatum's eardrum, Mark Ruffalo — in the same Hot Ones interview — discussed a much less violent relationship with roommate Joaquin Phoenix during the shooting of 2007's Reservation Road. “[Joaquin] was a great roommate,” said Ruffalo. “He was the roommate who’d be out and you’d get a text: ‘Need anything? Do you need me to pick up anything?’” Ruffalo said their place was clean, all of the dishes were washed, and Phoenix is a “great cook” who turned him on to vegan cuisine.

As Mark Ruffalo continued to nom-nom-nom some not-so-vegan wings during the interview, he talked about how Woody Harrelson used to carry around his own homemade hot sauce. Ruffalo continued, “It’s literally a matchstick amount of that in a freaking giant pot of chili, and it’s just ‘bang.’ It’s so intense.”

Mark Ruffalo plays Duncan Wedderburn in Poor Things opposite Emma Stone. The black comedy-fantasy also starring Willem Dafoe and Ramy Youssef opens in theaters nationwide on December 8.