Why Mark Ruffalo refused to get Avengers tattoo with Chris Evans and co-stars: 'I bullied him, trust me'

Every superhero team needs a rebel, and it turns out the Avengers found theirs off-screen. While five of the original six actors walked out of a tattoo parlor with matching ink, Mark Ruffalo walked out with nothing but his own skin, and a story that's still being told years later.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has grown into an entertainment juggernaut, churning out theatrical releases and a steady stream of Disney+ content. But it started small, and the cast of the original Avengers took a real risk making that first film together. That shared risk apparently created a bond tight enough to get inked over.

Speaking at Fan Expo Boston, Chris Evans reminisced about the full-court press he put on Ruffalo:

"Yeah, I know. And I bullied him. Trust me. I was pulling out real peer pressure. Scarlett's a tattoo person. I am. Hemsworth is. We were chatting about it one day on set. Scarlett was really into it. And I was glad because if I didn't have Scarlett I don't think I could have convinced everybody."

It makes sense. Most of the founding Avengers, it seems, already had a taste for tattoos, so getting matching ink during Infinity War to mark the end of an era felt inevitable. That era did end for three of them, Scarlett Johansson, Evans, and Robert Downey Jr. all stepped away from their signature roles after Endgame, though Downey and Evans are now set to return for Doomsday.

Evans wasn't finished venting, either. Later in the same appearance, he gave Johansson full credit for getting the tattoo train moving — and admitted defeat on Ruffalo:

"Well, Scarlett and I were casually talking about it. And she was like 'We should do that.' I was like 'Well, you go. No one's gonna listen to me.' And Downey was on board. Hemsworth was on board. Renner's on board for just about anything. We couldn't get Ruffalo. If any of you run into him give him a hard time."

Ruffalo has actually explained himself before, and his reasoning is a mix of the practical and the delightfully petty. For starters, needles genuinely freak him out, "I'm afraid of needles," he's admitted plainly. But the bigger reason is about vibe, not pain tolerance. As he put it during an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, everyone else jumping on the tattoo bandwagon was exactly why he wanted off it: he's got "a punk rock soul," and getting matched-up ink with five other movie stars felt a little too establishment for his taste.

There's something fitting about that logic. Getting a tattoo is supposed to be an act of rebellion, until it's something six A-list actors do together as a group activity, at which point the actual rebellious move is to abstain. Ruffalo essentially out-punk-rocked the punks by refusing to conform to their nonconformity.

Robert Downey Jr. has also weighed in over the years with his own retelling of the tattoo night, claiming Ruffalo flatly told the group he wasn't interested in being "part of your Hollywood inside game", a line Downey says he applauded before turning to the camera and mouthing something considerably less polite.