Mark Ruffalo to play jazz pianist Joe Albany in Low Down

Mark Ruffalo is currently shooting and mo-capping his role as Bruce Banner/ Hulk in The Avengers , but he's set to star in Low Down once he has wrapped on the superhero epic.

Ruffalo is better known for his work on smaller-scale fare, which it looks like he'll be returning to after The Avengers .

He'll play jazz pianist Joe Albany in an adaptation of Low Down: Junk, Jazz and Other Fairy Tales From Childhood , a memoir by Joe's daughter Amy Albany.

The film will apparently take the child's perspective on Albany's burgeoning career (and his fight with drug addiction) in the 60s and 70s.

Ruffalo has been one of the most consistently excellent supporting players of his generation, but it feels like he rarely gets the chance to shine in a leading role.

It looks like Low Down could change all that, and the unique child's-eye-view approach to the biopic could make this one to keep a very close eye on.

Joe Albany's contemporaries included more famous greats such as Charlie Parker and Miles Davis, and he was the subject of a documentary ( Joe Albany… A Jazz Life ) in 1980.

Ad director Jeff Preiss will be making his feature debut on Low Down .

Matt Maytum
Editor, Total Film

I'm the Editor at Total Film magazine, overseeing the running of the mag, and generally obsessing over all things Nolan, Kubrick and Pixar. Over the past decade I've worked in various roles for TF online and in print, including at GamesRadar+, and you can often hear me nattering on the Inside Total Film podcast. Bucket-list-ticking career highlights have included reporting from the set of Tenet and Avengers: Infinity War, as well as covering Comic-Con, TIFF and the Sundance Film Festival.