In
Iron Man, we watched as billionaire industrialist Tony Stark (
Robert Downey Jr.) confronted death and was changed by it, casting aside the weapons that had made his family wealthy and discovering an altruistic nature that he never before knew that he had. In
Iron Man 2, we find the world to be a safer place because of the "Iron Man deterrent." But, when Tony is once again faced with his own mortality, he decides to react selfishly, putting his life, his company, and the lives of countless others at risk because of his actions.
As befitting his role as the title star of
Iron Man 2, Downey, Jr. was the star of the press junket, bouncing on stage with a large lopsided smirk on his face and then berating the swarm of reporters who streamed toward the stage to place down their digital recorders.
"…you kind of cramped our style, 'cause we all came out with our intros and then you flooded the table to put down your recording devices. Next time we come out, leave your recording devices here before our intro so we can get what we're due." The first question tossed at him was the same one asked of director
Jon Favreau about the pressure to top the first movie with the sequel. Downey, Jr. said that he's still feeling it.
"You mean 'feel,' like it's past tense. I didn't sleep last night. I didn't sleep last night!" In one of the more candid moments of the junket, and the only time that his troubled past was mentioned, Downey, Jr. was asked if he ever used to dress up as a superhero growing up and his answer brought down the house.
"Growing up, no. But, in my mid-thirties, in Palm Springs right before an arrest, yes. It was a premonition." Downey, Jr. said that he loved bringing new actors into the
Iron Man family, but that it brought a certain level of stress to the production for him.
"It was great because these are all folks that I would be happy to work with in any circumstance, in any medium. So, it was just swell. As for the management of it, because I'm a little—I don't want to say neurotic—but I felt like a co-manager of a baseball team that just got an even better line-up in the spring, so I felt a little more beholden to be partially responsible for their experience. But, a lot of that really fell to Justin [Theroux, screenwriter]." Director
Jon Favreau was asked why he decided to expand his Happy Hogan character in the movie and Downey, Jr. took it upon himself to answer the question, mocking Favreau's weight gain during the production.
"There's three Happy Hogans in the movie. There's the Jon Favreau who is actually in excellent shape—he was boxing every day in pre-production—and made it into the ring in the scene where he gets his ass handed to him by Scarlett [Johansson] and it was originally a longer scene and maybe he was just too emasculated to let it be in the movie. Midway, he's struggling with the meta-fast...and then all of the time we were doing reshoots, they were actually framing him out of shots."
One of the funnier moments of the junket was when Downey, Jr. was asked if
Iron Man 2 was more demanding for him physically.
"Physically, I feel like Don [Cheadle] and Scarlett and Mickey actually had a heavier load this time..." Before he could finish,
Gwyneth Paltrow interjected:
"He made them do [all of his scenes] in CGI. He's like f*ck it!" To which, Downey, Jr. replied:
"Draw me." After skirting several topics with flippant answers, he finally got serious about how Tony grows emotionally in
Iron Man 2.
"...to me, the mental and emotional aspects and development of Tony were more—it's strange to say personal, 'cause it's not necessarily relating to my life, so to speak—but just to the mythology of saying you're something and being that something are entirely different. And, also this whole idea of Howard Stark and this legacy and the shadow of that legacy...Mickey [Rourke] and I about being two sides of the same coin, one being able to escape that captivity and one saw his father die in the ruins of improper recognition... Black Widow, Natalie, in certain places, bringing me back to an extended family I've always had, and Mickey telling me that all is not well and people have been dead for reasons that I might not understand or need to understand. And, Rhodey is there saying, 'Hey, you've always had me, kind of, on your wings, so why won't you let me help you?'" Just as Downey, Jr. was about to talk about how Pepper Potts relates to Tony in the movie, the giant
Iron Man 2 banner behind the stage fell down. Downey, Jr. immediately turned the startling moment into a hilarious send-up of my earlier question about
Sam Rockwell's absence, saying:
"Ladies and gentlemen, Sam Rockwell!"