Mark Ruffalo isn't Hulking out over this She-Hulk: Attorney at Law scene.
The actor, who stars as the Hulk in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, is happy that the new Disney+ series is finally addressing the fact that Edward Norton played the same role in 2008's The Incredible Hulk.
"I think it's really funny," Ruffalo told Entertainment Weekly. "It's just the reality that we all are often dancing around, but it's true. I actually joked with Ed about this. I was like, 'It's like our generation's Hamlet. Everyone's going to get a shot at it.'"
"There'll probably be another couple before it's all over," he added. "People will be like, 'Remember when the Hulk used to look like Mark Ruffalo? Now it looks like Timothée Chalamet.'"
The fourth-wall break comes when She-Hulk Jen (Tatiana Maslany) initially turns down a client, Emil Blonsky a.k.a. the Abomination (Tim Roth) because he tried to kill her cousin Bruce in The Incredible Hulk. But when Bruce hears this, he encourages her to take the job, joking that "that fight was so many years ago, I'm a completely different person now— literally." Jen then laughs directly at the camera.
Ruffalo went on to say that he doesn't feel jealous about passing on the Hulk torch to Maslany—rather, he's just interested to see how the role evolves within the MCU.
"The cool thing about this world is that it could just be anything," he said in the same interview. "Five years from now it could totally morph into anything, whatever's pertinent at the time. I almost see him going back to 'Berserker Hulk' or 'World War Hulk'. It could go anywhere. That's the exciting part—I've played five different versions from beginning to now, and that's kept it interesting for me and I hope interesting for other people."
But don't expect to be seeing Ruffalo hanging around She-Hulk for much longer: at the end of episode two, Bruce says he has "some things I've got to take care of," as its revealed he's working on a lab in outer space.
New episodes of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law premiere Thursdays on Disney+.