Mark Ruffalo's tragic experiences have shaped him

He said: "I don't know what I'd be without those experiences. Something like that happening or any kind of tragedy just opens the world in a different ... you realise human beings' fallibility. I have my own deep insecurity. And so I'm not that certain about anything. None of us know the ending of the story. All of us are walking around with an enormous amount of uncertainty and so maybe I bring that uncertainty to the parts I play. I'm painfully aware of that vulnerability of us as human beings. And in the end we are f***ing toast. No one gets out of here alive, no one gets out of the real struggle and the suffering."

And the 52-year-old actor feels there is a "gift in everything tragic if you survive it".

He added to The Independent: "Something like that never really leaves you. It's always there. I find myself being attracted to certain materials based on those relationships and the power of that relationship and that loss. You know, there is a gift in everything tragic if you survive it.

"You don't go through that without the person who left you. They leave you a gift that only their passing can give you. That's the only grace that we have as human beings, that through the suffering we actually gain something that couldn't be attained any other way."