
Two years ago, Iron Man took the world by surprise. Now he’s getting ready to take it by storm. Robert Downey Jr. and his costars talk about the superhero’s high-octane return in this week’s Entertainment Weekly.
EW: The massive success of the first Iron Man took a lot of people by surprise. How are you feeling at this point, with the opening of the second one just a few weeks away?
Jon Favreau: There’s always something to be anxious about. The question now is whether it lives up to the fans’ expectations. That’s been the conversation ever since we decided to make the sequel: How do you fulfill their expectations in an unexpected way? What should we demand of ourselves? I’ve never done a sequel [To Downey] Have you?
Robert Downey Jr.: Not really.
Scarlett Johansson: I was in Home Alone 3, but I didn’t do the first two, so I don’t think that counts.
Favreau: Home Alone 3? I don’t remember that. That didn’t have Macaulay Culkin in it, did it?
Johansson: [Deadpan] Let’s move on.
Don Cheadle: I did a triple.
Downey: You sure did. Which of Ocean’s Eleven, Twelve, and Thirteen was your favorite?
Cheadle: I was so drunk during all of those films, I don’t even…They said, “Don, it’s a wrap.” I’m like, “Huh? It’s over? Check, please.” [Laughs]
EW: What was it like when these two trains [Mickey Rourke and Robert Downey Jr.] hit the set?
Downey: Mickey likes a little psychological warfare. If I never hear the Gnarles Barkley song again, it’ll be too soon.
Favreau: Mickey has his process, man. He wants the music loud. We’d get these big speakers, like club speakers, and there were a handful of songs he would want played: Gnarles Barkley’s “Crazy”, “Rehab” by Amy Winehouse, “Proud Mary”, sometimes Johnny Cash. In that scene when he’s walking down the [Monaco] racetrack with the whips out and people are running and screaming and there’s tires on fire, “Rehab” was blasting.
Downey: I always thought, like, Why is he coming at me with “They tried to make me go to rehab”? I’m here with my Chinese herbs, sitting in the corner.
Favreau: Robert’s the opposite. Robert wants it serene. He’s laughing with people, communicating, grounding himself, stabilizing his energy. And then Mickey comes out there and throws the robe off like a wrestler coming into the ring, the music blaring.
EW: Mickey visited Russian prisons to help inform his performance. That seems like pretty hardcore Method preparations.
Favreau: I would agree. He came in and said, “I want to only speak Russian in the movie.” I’m like, “Well, that might be a problem.”
Downey: I say forget Method and just go right to the madness. I’m not even really an actor. I make faces for cash and chicken.
EW: Scarlett, what went through your head the first time you saw your Black Widow costume.
Johansson: What went through my head? I thought that it looked tight. Incredibly, incredibly tight. [Laughs]
Downey: I remember you were bitching about this kind of healthy diet you had to be on.
Johansson: I was like, “If I have to eat one more turkey burger…” It was that protein diet. So much turkey and eggs – ugh, it was horrible.
Favreau: And then there’s [your husband] Ryan [Reynolds] – you could do your laundry on his tummy.
Johansson: [Smiling] And we do.
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