Rian Johnson is a big shot these days, now that he’s the man in charge of Star Wars: Episode VIII, the dream job of every writer/director of his generation. Mark Ruffalo worked with Johnson when he was still and up-and-comer on his second feature, The Brothers Bloom. Ruffalo told us at TIFF that they rekindled their relationship recently because he “desperately” wants to join Johnson in his Star Wars adventure. Ruffalo said he sent an e-mail to Johnson that read:

“Rian, congratulations on everything you’ve been doing. And by the way, if there’s a part in Star Wars, please, anything, please consider considering me to join you.”

Hit the jump for everything Ruffalo had to say about Star Wars, as well as his passion for motion capture and how the two opportunities could intersect.

Steve caught up with Ruffalo at the Toronto International Film Festival to discuss Infinitely Polar Bear. We’ll post the full interview soon. Here’s the portion on Star Wars:

COLLIDER: You know how much I love Brothers Bloom.

RUFFALO: I just reached out to Rian recently, by the way.

That’s where I’m going with this. You’re very busy, but how much do you personally want to be in a Star Wars movie?

RUFFALO: Desperately. My e-mail to Rian after all these years was, “Rian, congratulations on everything you’ve been doing. And by the way, if there’s a part in Star Wars, please, anything, please consider considering me to join you.”

Say there’s not a big role, are you a huge enough fan that you’d be willing to wear the mask for one day and just be in the background just to be on set?

RUFFALO: Possibly, depending on timing. I love hanging out with Rian so that’s interesting to me but I would like a role.

I think you might have built up enough street cred.

RUFFALO: I hope so! It’d be nice to have something. And honestly, even a CGI role.

There’s a lot of motion capture now.

RUFFALO: I am thrilled about motion capture. It’s been a journey for me to get there. After this last Avengers and the work we’re doing with that, and the advancement of the technology even since the first Avengers, I’m so excited about where we can go with motion capture. I hope that I’m on the front line of this kind of new frontier of creativity and performance that is completely boundless. Definitely be interested in doing something like that for Star Wars.

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I don’t know that anything will come of this, but Ruffalo is a great actor, so I would be interested to see how Johnson could use him in the Star Wars universe.

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