Mark Ruffalo talks sex addiction in Thanks For Sharing

In Mark Ruffalo's latest film, Thanks For Sharing - which is co-scripted and directed by The Kids Are All Right's Stuart Blumberg and co-stars Gwyneth Paltrow - he tackles the "dramedic" topic of sex addiction, but he's far from uncomfortable with the subject matter. "I was raised in a household that was very kind of accepting of sex," Ruffalo tells Vulture from the Toronto International Film Festival. "I mean, it wasn't outrageous or gratuitous, but we were taught to be comfortable with our bodies, and there was no innate kind of Christian-Judeo projection of shame onto sexuality. I never really had an agenda about it, honestly, but it's true that I've been in a lot of movies that deal with it in one way or another."

So how does he feel about sex addiction? He understands the bewilderment in the public eye. "I think it seems like so many celebrities and athletes and politicians might use it as a "get out of jail free" card," he says, "but I know a lot of addicts, and so I know how there's a lot of bad behavior that can be chalked up to any kind of addiction. For a long time, I don’t think people believed in alcoholism, you know, and I think we're probably at the threshold of a decade of serious sex addiction."

Thanks For Sharing premiered last weekend at the Toronto International Film Festival and was recently picked up for domestic distribution by Lionsgate. ~Devin Garabedian