Mark Ruffalo on Cinematic Spouse Trading

Aug. 13, 2004 -- Mark Ruffalo doesn't advocate wife swapping, that's just what he does on the big screen, and something reality TV-happy Americans enjoy watching.

In We Don't Live Here Anymore, Ruffalo and Peter Krause of Six Feet Under play New England college professors — best friends who end up in bed with each other's wives.

Infidelity has always been a popular theme in popular entertainment. But these days, given the success of Fox's Trading Spouses and ABC's upcoming Wife Swap, it's bigger than ever. Yet Ruffalo wanted to give audiences more than a voyeuristic thrill.

"In America a little more than 50 percent of marriages end in divorce," says Ruffalo, who felt so strongly about the script, based on two short stories from In the Bedroom author Andre Dubus II, that he spearheaded the project as executive producer.

"These people are all struggling with one of the most difficult endeavors we may encounter in this life," he says. "The suffering was honest, the problems and people were complex and the dialogue beautifully written."

In the film, Ruffalo's character and his headstrong wife, played by Laura Dern, are caught up in the never-ending cycle of bills and chores. After an evening of free-flowing wine and conversation, he and his friend's wife, played by Naomi Watts, sneak off to a convenience store parking lot. And after an unexpected kiss, two marriages are in jeopardy.

Immediately suspicious, Dern confronts her husband, and tells him that his buddy had actually made a pass at her when he was out of town. But that only makes Ruffalo feel free to continue his affair and tell his wife as little as he pleases.

"I wonder how we'll get caught," Watts muses after a naked romp in the woods, as the extramarital games kick into high gear.

"It tells it like it can be at its worst," Ruffalo says. "Yet it leaves room for the simple grace of one's ability to work back to the original love that made it come together in the first place."