10 Best Mark Ruffalo Performances

You Can Count on Me was an early, career-defining film for Mark Ruffalo. Though Laura Linney's Oscar-nominated turn as a complex and flawed mother easily makes her the star of the film, without Ruffalo's performance as her rebellious, immature brother Terry, it may not have been as powerful.

Ruffalo plays Terry with equal parts excitement and pessimism. Terry is a guy who has something of a hard knock life, but one he is nonetheless proud of and unwilling to change. He also clearly loves his sister Sammy and her young son Rudy, but his blunt honesty and confrontational nature often leads him to push people away and get himself in trouble.

Looking over Ruffalo's filmography, it might be fair to say he's never played a character as flawed as Terry Prescott. He's funny and often endearing, but hard to put a finger on as well as ocassionally cold. It's a great showcase of the actor's talents, whatever you think of the character, and an early star-making performance that kicked off his rise to A-list status.