Mark Ruffalo recalls pulling Woody Harrelson out of a bar brawl

Mark Ruffalo says one night in New Orleans nearly turned into a disaster when his Now You See Me co-star Woody Harrelson got caught up in a bar fight.

Appearing on Ted Danson and Harrelson’s SiriusXM show Where Everybody Knows Your Name on Wednesday, Ruffalo, 57, looked back on their time filming the 2013 heist movie during Mardi Gras. 

Shooting “completely on the streets,” he said, meant things often got chaotic. “We’d be in the middle of a scene and get dragged into bars,” Ruffalo recalled.

He recalled one of those nights getting especially tense. “We were out one night, packed place, and a woman came up to [Woody] and said, ‘Oh my God, I love you so much,’” Ruffalo said. 

“Woody put his hand on her arm and said, ‘Thank you, darling.’ Then this guy comes over, pushes her out of the way, and shoves Woody.”

Harrelson, 64, then admitted, “Yeah, I remember that.” 

“Bad move,” Ruffalo remarked. “Woody’s first response isn’t to shove back — it’s to punch. Which, honestly, was the right thing to do. But then the whole bar just erupted. It was chaos.”

Ruffalo said he stepped in as he saw the situation escalating. “I grabbed him and pulled him out. It could’ve gone disastrously wrong because maybe Woody and I could’ve handled it, but the rest of the people with us? No chance.”

The two actors starred alongside Jesse Eisenberg, Isla Fisher, and Dave Franco in Now You See Me, which followed a team of illusionists pulling off elaborate heists while being chased by Ruffalo’s FBI agent. 

The film was a box-office hit, leading to a 2016 sequel. The pair is reuniting again for Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, hitting theaters November 14.