1998. Los Angeles. Mark Ruffalo was 30 years old and living in a converted garage.
He’d moved to Los Angeles years earlier with dreams of becoming an actor. He’d founded the Orpheus Theatre Company with friends. He’d auditioned for nearly 800 roles.
And he’d been rejected for almost all of them.
Mark had no money. No driver’s license. No credit card. He was living in what he later described as “a dump“ with artist friends, barely scraping by.
Most people in Hollywood would have looked at Mark Ruffalo and seen failure.
Sunrise Coigney saw something different.
She was 26 years old. A model and budding actress from New Orleans who’d moved to Los Angeles to pursue her own career. She wasn’t famous. She wasn’t wealthy. But she wasn’t broke and living in a garage either.
When Mark saw her walking down the street, he was with a friend—a friend who was also interested in her.
“I saw her and was like, ’I’m going to marry that girl,’” Mark later told Men’s Journal.
He approached Sunrise. They talked. Something clicked.
But Sunrise wasn’t immediately convinced.
“I was living in a dump and didn’t even have a driver’s license or a credit card” Mark admitted years later. “She thought I was a mess”
But she also saw something in him that nobody else had seen.
“She believed in me and kept encouraging me“ Mark said.
Sunrise told him: “I know you’re a really good actor”
Mark laughed. “You haven’t really seen me act yet”
“I just know it” Sunrise said. “I can tell”
That belief—that unwavering conviction in Mark’s talent when he had nothing to show for it—became the foundation of their relationship.
They started dating. Mark fell deeper in love. And sometime around 1999 or 2000, he proposed.
Sunrise said no.
She wasn’t ready. The timing wasn’t right. Whatever the reason, she turned him down.
Most men would have walked away. Moved on. Found someone else.
Mark didn’t retreat. He regrouped. And he asked again.
This time, Sunrise said yes.
On June 11, 2000, Mark Ruffalo and Sunrise Coigney got married.
And that same year, everything changed.
Mark landed a role in Kenneth Lonergan’s indie drama You Can Count on Me opposite Laura Linney. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2000 to rave reviews.
Mark’s performance as Terry Prescott—a troubled, charismatic drifter—earned him critical acclaim. Suddenly, Hollywood was paying attention.
After nearly 1,000 auditions and a decade of rejection, Mark Ruffalo’s career was finally taking off.
But just as his professional life was ascending, his personal life was about to be tested in the most terrifying way possible.
In 2001, Sunrise became pregnant with their first child. Mark was thrilled.
Then he started experiencing strange symptoms. Ringing in his ear. Dizziness. Something wasn’t right.
Mark went to the doctor. They ran tests. And the diagnosis came back: a brain tumor.
Mark was weeks away from becoming a father. His wife was pregnant. His career was finally gaining momentum.
And now he had a tumor in his brain.
“I was so sure I was going to die” Mark said years later, “that I recorded a video for my son so he could know who his dad was”
But Mark didn’t tell Sunrise about the diagnosis immediately. He didn’t want to stress her out while she was pregnant.
He kept the secret. Carried the fear alone. Until he couldn’t anymore.
When he finally told her, Sunrise didn’t fall apart. She didn’t panic.
She did what she’d always done: she believed in him.
Mark underwent surgery to remove the tumor. It was benign, but the procedure left him partially deaf in one ear and temporarily paralyzed on one side of his face.
“It was the worst experience of my life” Mark said.
But he survived.
In June 2001, their son Keen was born.
Mark’s career continued to grow. He starred in 13 Going on 30 (2004) with Jennifer Garner. Then Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004). Zodiac (2007). Shutter Island (2010).
In 2005, Sunrise gave birth to their daughter Bella Noche. In 2007, their second daughter Odette was born.
By 2010, Mark had been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Kids Are All Right—a role he got because Sunrise was friends with Julianne Moore and had texted her about the project.
“Behind every good man, there is a good woman“ Sunrise later said. “For Mark Ruffalo, that woman is his wife Sunrise”
But in 2008, tragedy struck again.
Mark’s younger brother, Scott Ruffalo—a popular hairstylist in Beverly Hills—was shot in the head in his apartment. He died a week later.
The murder was devastating. The investigation inconclusive. To this day, no one has been charged.
Mark was shattered. Sunrise and the children were his anchor.
“I don’t know if I would have made it without her” Mark told Closer Weekly in 2014.
Mark and Sunrise made a decision: they needed to leave Hollywood.
They moved their family to upstate New York—to the Catskills, where they’d been spending summers. Away from the paparazzi. Away from the red carpets. Away from the reminders of everything they’d lost.
“Sunny and I were looking at each other like, ’It’s good to get to know you again,’” Mark said about the move.
In 2012, Mark was cast as Bruce Banner/The Hulk in The Avengers. The role made him a global superstar.
But Mark Ruffalo never forgot where he came from.
He never forgot the converted garage. The 800+ auditions. The years of rejection.
And he never forgot the woman who saw something in him when he had nothing.
In February 2024, Mark Ruffalo received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Sunrise, Bella, and Keen attended the ceremony.
Mark dedicated the star to his wife.
“She believed in me when I was a broke actor living in a garage” Mark said. “She’s been there through brain surgery, through losing my brother, through everything”
On June 11, 2025, Mark and Sunrise celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary.
Mark posted a tribute on social media: photos of them over the years, the caption filled with gratitude and love.
They have three children. A life split between Los Angeles and upstate New York.
But what they really have is proof that Hollywood’s fairy tales sometimes happen to real people.
Mark Ruffalo went to nearly 1,000 auditions before his big break.
He was living in a garage with no driver’s license and no credit card when he met Sunrise Coigney on a Los Angeles street in 1998.
She thought he was a mess. But she believed in him anyway.
She said no to his first proposal. Then yes to the second.
She stood by him through brain surgery, the murder of his brother, and the chaos of sudden fame.
And 27 years later, they’re still together.
Because sometimes love isn’t about finding someone when you’re successful.
It’s about finding someone who sees your success before anyone else does—including yourself.
Mark Ruffalo is now the Hulk. An Oscar-nominated actor. A Hollywood A-lister.
But in 1998, he was just a broke guy in a garage who saw a woman on a Los Angeles street and thought: “I’m going to marry that girl.”
And somehow, impossibly, he did.