Robert Downey Jr. on Tony Stark's Progression in AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON
We've already posted interviews with Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, and Mark Ruffalo as they discussed Joss Whedon's Avengers Age of Ultron and their characters in that movie. We also got some huge Marvel movie news yesterday when the studio announced their exciting line-up of films through 2019! But, now it's time to see what Robert Downey Jr. has to say about Age of Ultron and his character Tony Stark. He begins by talking about his first initial reaction to getting the script from Whedon.
"Well, first of all, he’s a good writer, so I always tend to think generally speaking, 'Is this a movie I wanna see?' ‘cause all the fine points are gonna get worked out. At this point, as the Mayor of Marvel (laughter), there’s gonna be so many squeaky wheels along the way. Many of them practical and others just, you know, creative departures or differences or whatever. So to me, this kinda started with the third Iron Man which is like, 'All right, I’m gonna read the script. Who wrote it?' 'Shane Black.' 'I like it.' This time I think that from jump I thought, “Wow, this is really what Avengers: Age of Ultron should be. (I hadn’t figured it out beforehand) But I was done with the first draft and I said, 'Cool, I like it.' Kevin was like, 'Wait, what did you just say?' (laughter) I’m sure there was a bunch of iterations and things that changed over time. Then I read the second and then the third draft, and he’s continuing to write even as we’re setting up shots he’s going, 'I know what I want it to be or bringing back in a line that was in the first draft or whatever.' You’d think was like the ingredients to that salad dressing that makes girls go into labor. I guess it is."
When asked where Tony Stark is in his life in Age of Ultron, and how he's playing the character as he progresses, Downey responds,
"Well, I would counterpoint that by saying that I thought that the third Iron Man was about him transcending his dependence on the merits of continuing to wear your wound. And I thought that that was kind of what Shane and I thought was the real win. Was that he throws that thing that had become a dependency away because… that was the question I was always asking is, 'Why doesn’t he get those shards out? It’s dangerous.' So it kinda reminds me of like all that stuff, particularly as you get a little older or if you have any existential queries whatsoever. It’s like, 'Why aren’t I dealing with that which is going to destroy me any second anyway?' And then the armor was kind of an extension of that. Also, there was just so many suits, but I think he realizes that tweaking and making all the suits in the world which is what he has been doing still didn’t work for that thing of his, that tour of duty that left him a little PTSD. So his focus is more on how can we make it so that there’s no problem to begin with. That there’s a bouncer at our planet’s rope. That’s the big idea."
Whedon talked about how one of the big themes of this next Avengers movie is being destroyed by power. Downey Jr. discusses how that applies to Tony in the story.
"I mean honestly I think it’s probably that thematically I think it’s the best thing Joss decided to go after, you know what I mean? It’s a very kinda typical gung-ho western iconic thing to be like, 'There’s nothing wrong with me. Now let’s begin.' It’s kind of like an objective introspection at the whole idea. I think he always thinks about it. Like he says, 'All right, let me just pretend I’m being pro-offered this narrative at first glance. What do I think? All right, they’re nuts.' He’s doing a bit of the Noam Chomsky approach Avengers in retrospect which I think is healthy, and I think it also just opens up a whole other avenue of creativity for it, you know. That’s what I really notice is there’s a lot of dots that could have connected a certain way, but because there’s that theme of, “Could it be that we’re the problem and therefore a bad guy? If you wanna call it. I can’t really say there’s a bad guy. It’s hard to call Jimmy Spader a bad guy, but he’s scary and he’s bright and hurting and all that, but his thought is, 'I see what’s wrong here. And guess what? It’s y’all.'”
One of the other things that I found interesting was how he responded to a question about Tony's relationship with Ultron.
"I always read this as the concept that every impulse starts off as a positive impulse. Even impulse to kill starts off as an impulse to change, to rail against, to challenge the authority of in a very direct and permanent solution to a temporary problem kinda way. I think because Tony’s solution is what becomes the problem in a way that’s really kinda interesting and also ties in to the Vision. Again that to me was… there was a Rubik’s Cube to how not to make these things happen. (By) Act Three, you’re just going I really hope you like Acts One and Two, because now we’re just gonna do all this stuff. I think it was the same thing in 'Iron Man 3'–Act. Three was the strongest act. I think that this is really gunning for that sort of thing, because, you know, I love movies. I love these kinds of movies, so I feel like I’m just a very tolerant kind of consumer with these things. But I also feel like the half-life of, if you noticed just how flooded the market is becoming and likely to become potentially even more so, I think that there has to be a bit of a transcendence of formula. And so without giving too much away I think and why I generally just kinda like stamped it when the first draft came in ‘cause I thought, 'Oh wow, it didn’t fall into that trap.' And I read the last page and I got chills for a reason I definitely can’t explain. (laughter) But there’s a lot of new talent coming in, you know. With Aaron Taylor Johnson and obviously Lizzie Olsen. Just even seeing Paul Bettany within a thousand miles of the set where we’re shooting is just like, 'Wow. This is gonna be really cool.'"
There's a lot of other stuff that you can read in the full interview. But these are the more interesting aspects of it. Tony Stark is a really interesting and complex character, and as these movies continue he's going to get even more complex. Especially since he plays a major role in dividing the Avengers team. Damn, these movies are to to just get better and better.