Lucky San Diego Comic-Con goers got a sneak peek at the first publicly viewed "Iron Man 2" footage, fueling the fervor for the hotly anticipated sequel. We'll keep those fires burning bright by bringing you inside "Iron Man 2" -- all in a series of stories about our set visit a few weeks back. Last Wednesday we opened with an overview. On Thursday we got insight from Marvel Studios President, Kevin Feige. On Friday we heard from Jon Favreau, director of "Iron Man 2." Today we round out the four-part series with Tony Stark himself, Robert Downey Jr., to weigh in! Remember, "Iron Man 2" hits theaters, May 7, 2010.
By Randy Ma
When we met Robert Downey Jr. on the set of "Iron Man 2" he immediately cracked a joke about embargos, revealing that he would have gladly told us everything about the movie if he could. In a way, it reminded us of the ending to the first film, where
S.H.I.E.L.D. representative Agent Coulson asks that Tony Stark not reveal his identity as Iron Man to world, a request Stark blissfully ignores in the film's cliffhanger.
"Half the stuff [Tony Stark] does, he doesn't really ever know why he did it," Downey said. "He does it in the moment because it seems like the thing to do. It's counterintuitive for him to be blatantly dishonest. He has a problem with authority too, and it seems to be a through line, as it speaks to his father issues."
We know there's some sort of energy crisis at the center of "Iron Man 2" and that Tony's relationship with his father will play a major role in the film. However, when we last left him in "Iron Man," Tony had discovered a renewable energy source in the arc reactor that actually powers the suit.
"[The arc reactor] was always a spectacular energy source," Downey remarked. "So there's this crisis of energy and there's this legacy of his dad, and these expos come every decade. It's a bit of a grail-kind of a grail of the movie-taking everything he's involved with to the next level because it's still a flawed technology he's working on."
Downey went on to mention that during Tony's research in "Iron Man 2," he's introduced to the element palladium. By coincidence, he found out cold fusion was based on this chemical. Considering this fact, along with the information that Howard Stark had involvement with the Manhattan Project, and we can see a connection between the two.
"We wanted the story to be more human and base it in a more emotional way," Downey explained. "The more you get me in a sense of felt reality then the more excited I am to see how far-out it goes."
S.H.I.E.L.D. will definitely play a larger role this time around, along with returning characters Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) and Colonel James "Rhodey" Rhodes (Don Cheadle). They will be joined by Stark's rival industrialist Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell), the villain Whiplash (Mickey Rourke) and the Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson).
"We try to make it not a big primordial stew of people," Downey says. "In Rhodey's case with Don Cheadle, we're really laying what we might've done [in the first film], to show the delineation between what the military obligations are, where we are as friends and the point he's making to what the reality will be if you have this tech.
"Stark Industries was beholden to many patents he made or didn't make," Downey continued. "The further we looked into the reality, the more interesting it became. But as far as Rhodey and Pepper, everyone is a lot deeper and wider."
But what about Tony Stark? Downey has established himself as a character that will be identified for decades to come. One of the main draws in the film lies not just in Iron Man, but with the man behind the suit as well.
"The biggest risk we took-it's essentially more of an inner game than who his nemeses are," Downey explained." It really is a Marvel family, but my thing in Tony is somebody that's trying to remember, on a daily basis, what was it that [director] Jon [Favreau] and I created that everybody liked last time and how do we push it forward?"
Downey clearly cherishes the character of Tony Stark and knows there's a lot of history to honor for the fans. While we watched him on set it quickly became obvious he was having a blast. When asked how it felt to act while wearing the Iron Man suit, which includes its weight and non-maneuverability, Downey sarcastically replied:
"It's fine...ask Jon about it."
Check out Iron Man 2 Set Visit stories: Part One, Part Two and Part Three.
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