Iron 2 pumps it up for Marvel and Paramount
By Alicia Hollinger
HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 4/25/10
“I’m a little neurotic,” admits Robert Downey Jr. regarding all the new talent tossed into the IRON MAN 2 cast mix, “but I felt a little bit like a co-manager of a baseball team that just got an even better lineup in the spring, and so I felt a little beholden to be partially responsible for their experience.”
The much anticipated sequel to IRON MAN, aptly titled “IRON MAN 2” opens on May 7th. with a slew of new talent and characters. Directed by Jon Favreau, and written by Justin Theroux, Iron Man 2 stars Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Scarlett Johansson, , Mickey Rourke , Samuel L. Jackson , Don Cheadle, and Sam Rockwell.
“The trick is,” says director Favreau regarding all the new characters, “to feather them in so that they don’t overwhelm the story and you don’t suffer from villain-itis… We really tried to keep narrative flows going so that it didn’t get convoluted ‘cause I lose track of that stuff, especially in sequels, as franchises get more complex. I don’t always remember what happened in the last movie… I’m not gonna do homework before I see a sequel to be up on everything, so we try to keep things simple.”
Gwyneth Paltrow, returning as Pepper Potts and new cast addition Scarlett Johansson add sex appeal and girl power to the sequel. “Of course they’re sexy characters,” says Johansson. “When you have a sexy secretary or a girl swinging around by her ankles in a cat suit, that’s innately sexy. But these characters are intelligent, they’re ambitious, they’re motivated and calculated to some degree. To be just a pawn in a story of a whole bunch of men kind of fighting it out and rolling around and getting down and dirty, and there you are to be this sort of vision in a tight cat suit is a boring thing to me.”
She admits “I’ve never been a huge fan of this genre really. I think because it was always sort of one note and very explosive. I think because Gwyneth and I are able to sort of be the brains behind the operation in some aspect, there’s kind of a happy medium. It adds to the charm and charisma of the film.”
Paltrow agrees, “I think it’s a very smart decision, actually, to have women who are capable and intelligent, because it appeals to women. So it’s not only a film for fifteen-year-old boys. It’s a film that can relate to a lot of people on a lot of levels… There are interesting women in the movie… My character is quick and articulate… it’s nice to see women who are aspirational, smart and sexy all at the same time.”
Downey immediately thought of Mickey Rourke for the role of the Russian villain, Ivan Vanko, and lobbied for him to get the role, even before his recent awards and acclaim. Rourke says of his IRON MAN 2 experience “It was nice because I’d just come off working on a film where there was no budget and I didn’t have a chair to sit in, and I remember the first day [on this film] I said, ‘Can I have a cappuccino,’ and they said, ‘Which kind would you like?’, so…”
Although based on Justin Theroux script, the film was highly improvised and rewritten on the spot. “It’s a heavily improvisational set,” says Theroux, “in that everyone gets to chime in. And so my job as the writer was really to just sort of stay on the dance shoes of Robert and Jon and Gwyneth and everybody, and just try and rewrite things on the fly. We did have an extensive development process, obviously, where we sort of had a script, and that ball keeps rolling into production, and then once we’re on set, it gets very frenetic and very fast.”
“The story is very well fleshed out,” says director, Favreau “but… we leave a lot of room within those scenes, and try to do multiple cameras sometimes, or stay up and rewrite, and Justin, he was doing multiple passes, sometimes double digit passes on scenes, because we learn things from each scene that we shoot. We try to shoot pretty much in order. What’s nice about having these actors” adds Favreau, “is that they’re all very good stewards of their characters emotionally, and they’re used to being in films where you don’t have the safety net of all the high technology and the explosions. And so, if they have an issue with something we’re asking the character to do for the story, we discuss it, and we figure out a way so that it can work for them as a performer and also for the movie.”
Downey’ Jr.’s wife, Susan Downey, gets Executive Producer credit on this one. “Susan is a great producer,” says Favreau. “She has tremendous organizational ability and she understands Robert’s creative process, and understands the first movie and lived through it with us. So, Susan, who has a very strong background in both development and physical production, was able to come and help. It’s like one of those shows where they organize all your closets for you and make you throw out the clothes you don’t need anymore.”
“At a certain level,” says Downey, “they may have thought she was going to come in and tame me or put me in check, or whatever, but I was completely out of my mind.”
Downey admits to not being that interested in doing actual physical action scenes. Paltrow cracks “He made them do it all in CGI. He’s like ‘fuck it, CGI, CGI it!’”
Paltrow and Downey shared an on-screen kiss, filmed while both their spouses were present on set and watching. Downey quips “[Gwyneth] said to me that I didn’t know what I was doing, like it didn’t feel good, and I’m like, ‘You know what, we’re all friends so what would be creepy would be if I was coming off all sexy to you,’ and by the way, done that, and it creeps them out.”
Far from creepy, Robert Downey Jr. is forever the hero, rescuing a press audience from a falling “IRON MAN 2” banner and wrapping it around himself gallantly, perhaps preparing for his next superhero role, “Poster Man…?”
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