June 8, 2007 - At the press junket in Hawaii for the animated penguin surfing movie, Surf’s Up, Jeff Bridges couldn’t avoid questions about his next major film – Iron Man. Directed by Jon Favreau (Elf) and based on the Marvel comic, Iron Man stars Oscar-nominee Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark, a billionaire weapons manufacturer who's injured by one of his weapons and winds up creating a high-tech suit of armor. Donning the armor, Stark is transforms into Iron Man.
“I’m playing Obadiah Stane who in the movie version is Tony Stark’s, that’s Robert Downey’s character, Iron Man, sort of his mentor. I run his company, Stark Enterprises,” said Bridges. Filming’s currently underway and Bridges says things are humming along. “Well, let’s see. It’s been wonderful working with Jon Favreau who’s the director of the film. He’s a wonderful actor that I’ve admired for a long time. I remember first seeing him in Swingers. He wrote that, did such a great job, and Robert Downey Jr. We were talking about improvisation in [Surf’s Up], well, we’re doing a lot of improvisation in Iron Man to discover scenes and getting off the written page and doing a lot of work like that.”
As far as the film’s tone, Bridges believes fans will be very satisfied with how the movie approaches the character. “I know Jon is very interested in grounding it in as much reality as he possibly can,” said Bridges. “That’s kind of informing the whole thing. The suit for instance, I don't know if you saw the first suit, the primitive kind of suit, it looks like, ‘Oh yeah, maybe that could happen.’ It’s all plausible.”
Bridges used to shoot photos while he was on movie sets but unfortunately for fans of his photography work, he's stopped doing that. Asked if he’s tempted to snap off a few pics during his Iron Man downtime, Bridges replied, “Sort of but not really because I’m kind of a supporting player in it so I’m missing a lot of the action, the day to day work of the thing. And also, a lot of the special effects are going to happen in post so there’s not really too much there. It’s kind of frustrating with this Widelux camera. It shoots film. If there’s no focus, the light in the places where you film is usually so low, to get a good shot it’s kind of tough. I kind of got out of the groove of it for some reason.”
And speaking of special effects, Bridges laughed about how they've progressed by leaps and bounds since he worked on Tron back in the early ‘80s. Bridges recalled, “I remember when we did Tron, we were so excited seeing it, and then I remember about a week after the opening going home and seeing all that technology in a commercial. Just boom, just made it passé like that. That’s the way technology is. It happens so fast.”
Bridges should be done with his work on Iron Man by mid-June and already has his next project lined up. “I just signed on… I don't know if it’s official yet but I believe it is. A movie called, I hope I get this title right, don’t tell me, don’t tell me... It’s called How to Lose Friends and Alienate People.”
Simon Pegg and Kirsten Dunst are also onboard the film, and Bridges confesses to being a big fan of Pegg’s work. “I think he’s great. I like Shaun of the Dead a lot. I think it’s wonderful.”
Bridges described who he’ll be playing in How to Lose Friends and Alienate People: “I play the chief editor of a magazine that Simon is working for.” The film’s adapted from Toby Young’s memoir with the magazine loosely based on Vanity Fair.
