When Katey Rich interviewed Dominic Cooper back in September, he had flown to Toronto for a quick break from the First Avenger: Captain America shoot, which he joked would be going on "for another 80 years." The star of Mamma Mia! and the forthcoming Tamara Drewe is no stranger to large blockbusters has been cast as Howard Stark, father to Iron Man Tony Stark, and since Captain America is set in the 40s Cooper will be playing the character as a young man, years before we meet the man we saw in Iron Man 2, played by Mad Men's John Slattery.
When asked Cooper about Slattery's take on the character and how he planned to echo it, especially since the two actors don't look all that much alike:
We don't look anything alike at all. There's a certain energy about him, a style of what he's portraying, how he's doing the character, which maybe we have an essence of in common.
Then he was asked about the notoriously massive contracts Marvel has its actors sign, such as the nine-picture deal that Samuel L. Jackson agreed to before playing Nick Fury. Cooper seemed a little relieved that his commitment was less extreme:
I think I may escape that. I can't see how they're going to use him again as a young man.
The interviewer noted that Cooper seemed a million miles away from all the Marvel madness but very aware that the scrutiny of comic book geeks will be like nothing he's ever experienced.