William Hurt Was Afraid Of Being Upstaged By His Mustache In The Incredible Hulk
Louis Leterrier's "The Incredible Hulk" was released in August of 2008, a year before Disney made their notorious $4 billion purchase of Marvel Entertainment. Once the Disney purchase was finalized, the company announced its plan to build out the then-new Marvel Cinematic Universe, which was novel at the time. Disney also retconned Paramount's "Iron Man," and Leterrier's movie (made for Universal) into the MCU, using a foundation that had already been built. The announcement of a whole string of interconnected superhero movies set the pop world on fire, and the ensuing decade would be crushed — both positively and negatively — by Marvel.
"The Incredible Hulk" was sort of the red-headed stepchild of those early films. It starred Edward Norton as Bruce Banner, and Norton, as with any of his films, attempted to assert creative control over the project. The tone of "Incredible" is steelier and more machine-like than the ultra-slick MCU films that would follow it, and only three cast members would return for future MCU movies. The Hulk would be re-cast with Mark Ruffalo for all subsequent "Avengers" outings.
William Hurt played a character named Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross, and would appear in four subsequent Avengers movies. Hurt passed away in 2022, and his character will be played by Harrison Ford in the upcoming film "Thunderbolts."
Hurt, evidently, felt some trepidation about appearing in "The Incredible Hulk." The actor was afraid he signed onto a generic SFX bonanza, which is not what he wanted to do. In 2023, Leterrier spoke to MTV about working with Hurt, and how much bickering occurred between them. Hurt, it seems, didn't want to be a cardboard background character with only a cool mustache to define him.
Eventually, Leterrier got his actor in line by slamming him into the wall of a helicopter.
How much of a man is his mustache?
Leterrier noted that "The Incredible Hulk" was not a moody, introspective drama like Ang Lee's "Hulk" from 2003. His "Hulk" movie was going to be more action-forward and feature a lot more monster mayhem and destruction. The film was to climax with the Hulk battling an evil Hulk called the Abomination (Tim Roth) on a public street. The abundance of action, according to Leterrier, would force many of the film's actors to convey character without dialogue. Hurt took exception to this, perhaps feeling he was being treated like a mannequin. Was Ross' look more important than his character? Leterrier even recalled having to talk about the size of Hurt's mustache. The director recalled:
"It was tough to convince [him] that we weren't just making a paint-by-the-numbers comic book [movie]. [...]. A lot of ['Incredible'] is non-verbal and so, you can only do this with amazing actors. He also didn't want the mustache to out-act him, so the size of the mustache was a discussion."
Hurt returning for subsequent Avengers movies perhaps indicates that he had found a "hook" for Thaddeus Ross and that he knew what to do with the character. Hurt was a mellow, understated, intense actor whose naturalistic style doesn't quite match the outsize comedic melodrama of a superhero movie. As an actor, he had every right to be concerned. Looking back, it's odd that a high-octane filmmaker like Leterrier should have cast difficult iconoclasts like Hurt and Edward Norton for an FX-based thriller.
Hurting Hurt
It seems that the mustache wasn't the end of it, either. Hurt and Leterrier continued to bicker throughout production, growing increasingly antagonistic as time passed. Leterrier was jocular about Hurt's strange arguments, but the director had become so angry during the shoot that he decided to jostle Hurt around a bit. Leterrier recalled an argument he and Hurt had on board a moving helicopter and the cathartic moment between them. He said:
"One day, he was just screaming at me, 'You don't know anything about actors!' Too bad for him, he was on the giant helicopter at the end and I was in control. He was like, 'You have to find the button to the nuclear plant that is [inside me].' I took the joystick and basically shook him into the [wall]. He fell, looked at me, and was like, '... I like you!' And that was it. He just wanted to have a little bit of a fight."
After that, it seems that Leterrier had Hurt under control.
Because "The Incredible Hulk" was made before the inception of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it's not particularly beloved in the MCU canon. There is also some push-and-pull between the fans who prefer Leterrier's action-packed "Incredible" and those who prefer Ang Lee's artier, moodier "Hulk." Ultimately, fans accepted it into the MCU, although it's typically presented with an asterisk. "Incredible" is, however, not the worst-reviewed MCU movie. According to Rotten Tomatoes, "Thor: Love and Thunder," "Eternals," "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania," and "The Marvels" all received worse reviews.