By Jeff Pfeiffer
HBO has produced a gripping, six-part adaptation of Wally Lamb’s bestselling novel I Know This Much Is True, boasting an incredible cast led by Mark Ruffalo, who is also an executive producer for this project that is clearly a labor of love for Ruffalo. After being delayed by the coronavirus pandemic, the series begins airing on May 10.
“I read the book,” the actor explains, “and [that] really made me passionate about doing it.”
Ruffalo brought the book to filmmaker Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine), who wrote, directed and executive produced the miniseries, an epic family saga that follows the lives of identical twin brothers Dominick and Thomas Birdsey, both played by Ruffalo in a stunning performance.
The miniseries is largely set in the 1990s, when the men are adults. It also has flashbacks to the brothers’ childhoods, to offer glimpses into the trauma each man has dealt with in his own way.
“They’re twin brothers,” Ruffalo explains. “They have a lot of similarities, but then they’re extremely different. [Thomas] is living with schizophrenia, and the medication he takes causes him to gain weight. Of course, he’s living with that mental illness, and that has its own challenges that are very different than Dominick’s.”
The emotional and physical lengths to which Ruffalo went as an actor here show how captivated he was by Lamb’s story. The author is also an executive producer, and Ruffalo says that “early on, he was a big part of showing us the world, kind of setting us on the path of our journey. … But at some point, he’s like, ‘Listen, guys. I did the book, now you do the movie. I understand it’s not going to be the same.'”
