In an interview with Newsarama, Don Cheadle has talked more about taking on the role of War Machine in Iron Man 2 and gone into further detail about preparing to play the character and how he thinks Tony and Rhodey's relationship will develop in future movies and much more! Below are some of the main highlights from the interview but to read the full version just follow the link at the bottom of the page!
On Fan Reaction To Him Playing War Machine:
"I kind of kept my head in the sand. I don’t go on the Internet trying to see what people are saying about War Machine or me. That’s stuff maybe I used to do when I started 20 years ago but now I know those things are so beyond my control that to me there’s not a lot of benefit in wasting time worrying about it. I would rather spend my energy focused on the job I am trying to do and hopefully, if you do the job well, those other things will take care of themselves."
On Preparing to Play Rhodey:
"I knew that ultimately Rhodey was going to be whatever was in the script that I had to follow but I did want to familiarize myself with the character, to know what that history was and what the mythology was. It turned out to be very confusing! That was the thing that allowed me to relax and just do whatever the script dictated because there are so many different iterations"
"We consulted with military advisors. We had people from the Department of Defense on the set. And I learned that I don’t want to be in the military. Those guys have an awesome responsibility as we all know, as we have unfortunately experienced in the last several years in the world, what it really takes and what they really have to do. It was a very interesting dynamic to bring to this movie because what does Tony owe to his country? And what does my character do to both honor his friendship with his person but still be who he is, which is a military man who really believes there are rules you have to follow? Tony doesn’t even know how to spell rules so how does this work?"
On Wearing War Machine's suit:
"It’s us in a mo-cap suit and the stunt men in the mo-cap suit. And sometimes it’s me in the heavy metal and the stunt man in the heavy metal. I think on the call sheet my CGI character worked as many days as I did."
"Getting out of the suit was always fun! You couldn’t touch your own face. If you had to go to the bathroom, you just had to wait. But then you step back and get a bigger perspective and the 12-year-old boy in me is going ‘This is fun!’ So it was a lot of fun."
On Future Iron Man Movies:
"I don’t think we know yet where it’s going to go or what the results are going to be for how they will work in tandem. And I think it’s tricky because the question is will Rhodey able to continue to keep his position as a Colonel in the military and work with this guy who is going to be a rogue? I don’t see Iron Man ever saying, 'Yes, I’ll come under the chain of command be ruled by a General.' I think he is going to do how he’s going to do, so I don’t know how it’s going to work between the two of them but it will be interesting to see them try to do it."
"Quite honestly we wrapped the movie so long ago and if the next one were to happen, it’s going to happen after 'Thor', 'Captain America', and Robert is going to do another 'Sherlock Holmes' so it’s going to be a minute. There are many other projects I have going on between now and then so I’ll get focused on those and when the script drops then I’ll do. It’s its own train on its own track so you just let that happen and go about your life until they come back and say let’s do another one."
Iron Man 2 is out now in the UK and will finally be released in the US this coming Friday!