It is hard to forget how outstanding the first Marvel film and its cast truly were when we look back on Jon Favreau’s Iron Man, 2008. Consider Cecil B. DeMille Award winner Jeff Bridges, the main antagonist in the first MCU film. Playing Obadiah Stane aka Iron Monger in Robert Downey Jr.’s starrer film was actually something very special to Bridges, who has etched his name into Hollywood history through a long list of iconic movie roles.
Although Bridges’ praise for the film was expected, The Dude (The Big Lebowski) also admitted that the confusion surrounding the movie drove him “absolutely crazy”. Downey Jr. played Tony Stark in Iron Man until his final appearance as the popular superhero character in Avengers: Endgame (2019).
Why Did Jeff Bridges Get ‘Crazy’ With Iron Man?
Jeff Bridges has been spilling beans about the groundbreaking Iron Man production even after several years of its release. Jon Favreau, whom Bridges referred to as a “great filmmaker” in a career retrospective video for Vanity Fair, directed the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s 2008 debut film.
The Big Lebowski actor, 73, further explained:
“It was Marvel’s first adventure into making movies. It was so lucky to have Jon on there and [Robert] Downey, because both of them are so, they’re terrific improvisers..”
Marvel did not, however, make Favreau’s job any simpler at the time. Screenwriters were contacted by the director to serve as consultants, according to Bridges:
“Jon would say, ‘Oh, I know a writer. Let me see he may have some ideas…’ Meanwhile, the crew is in the sound stage, tapping their feet saying, ‘When are we going to get this thing going?’”
The True Grit actor had never faced a situation like this one before. It was regrettably not all sunshine and butterflies for The Old Man star as he reflected on his time as Obadiah Stane. The Oscar-winning actor confessed:
“It drove me absolutely crazy until I made a slight adjustment in my brain and that adjustment was, ‘Jeff, just relax. You’re making a $200 million student film. Just relax and have fun.’ And that kind of did the trick because here I get to play with these two incredible artists and just jam, and that’s what we ended up doing.”
Marvel Refused To Allow Iron Man Actors To Modify Scripts?
Jeff Bridges claimed that during the early stages of the Iron Man film’s production, he, Jon Favreau, and Robert Downey Jr. came up with a modified version of the script. Nevertheless, Marvel Studios’ opposition prevented them from using it.
In his Vanity Fair interview, The Contender actor recalled:
“We spent a couple of weeks working on the script, rehearsing together, because we didn’t like the original script and we thought, ‘Oh yeah, we fixed this, fixed that’. And then came the first day of shooting, and Marvel kind of threw out our script that we had been working on, said, ‘No, that’s no good. It’s gotta be this, that.’ And so there was a lot of confusion about what our script was, what we were gonna say, ya know?”
The script change and Marvel’s insistence on adhering to its creative roadmap drove Bridges to insanity. He recalled during The Hollywood Reporter Actor Roundtable:
“Iron Man — we read the script, and it wasn’t really right, you know? We had two weeks’ rehearsal, and we basically rewrote the script. And the day before we were going to shoot, we get a call from the Marvel guy, saying, ‘Oh, no, no, no. None of this is right.’ So we would muster in my trailer and rehearse while the guys were in the studio tapping their foot, saying, ‘When are they going to come?’ We were still trying to figure out the [scenes] we were going to shoot.”
Anyway, Iron Man earned more than $585 million and received positive reviews from critics, who praised Downey’s performance as well as Favreau’s direction, visual effects, action scenes, and writing.
Meanwhile, Jeff recently starred in the drama-thriller television series The Old Man, based on Thomas Perry’s 2017 novel of the same name.
Stream Iron Man on Disney Plus.
