What kind of physical training have you done?
“Robert and his competitive ass, I almost tore my shoulder trying to keep up with him. Here I'm 40-50 pounds heavier than him, so I'm lifting and I put up, push up about 225, knock it out 10 times. Robert wants to go and do 235, and he did it. So I'm going to push it up to 245. I took him out running and gave him some nice cramps while we were in Lone Pine. He couldn't walk for a couple days. That was really nice.”
Are you still doing five miles a day?
“I'm doing six now, but I found the best way to do it is not to do it straight. Do a mile and a half, that's running for 15 minutes, rest for an hour, do another mile and a half, so you got the first three. Then in the evening, same thing. You can sprint it and it doesn't hurt your legs or anything like that. It's great now. I actually was able to pull off 100 pushups without stopping, without resting. We all do that, we all try to do it. I got to I can do 100 pushups without resting now, so I'm all right.”
And working with Gwyneth Paltrow?
“We've had a couple scenes, but Gwyneth is hard to work with because she's so beautiful. You try not to flirt with her. You don't want to flirt but you're hoping somewhere in your heart, ‘I'm hoping she likes me. I'm hoping that she likes me and that she'll leave Coldplay to come and hang out with me.’ I've got two more pictures to work on her. Let him mess up.”
And working with Jeff Bridges?
“Oh, Jeff, he surprised me because he is so good at improvisation. He's so comfortable and just flows. He reminds me of Nick Nolte in that sense that they both just - they've always been competing giants anyway, but he's like that. We went, one of the first times when we got together, he took me in his trailer and we smoked cigars and drank some vodka and played guitar for four hours after wrap. He's a brilliant musician and a great songwriter. Jeff is beautiful and he kept giving me hints on how to play my character, which I loved. Loved, please.”
Do we see the birth of War Machine here?
“You read the comic book? If you read the comic book, then you kind of know what happens. But you still have to wait because you all ain't taking away my next two movies. You're not taking my job. I like y'all, but man…”
Are we getting closer to the Academy recognizing comic book movies?
“Well, when you look at the stuff that Robert does in this movie, I mean at the end of every take, someone is applauding. Someone is applauding and I'm not talking about, ‘Good job.’ I'm talking about [claps]. He's brilliant. He is brilliant, so if anybody ever gets an academy nomination for a comic book, I think Robert might be one.”
Have you been paying attention to the fan community?
“I mean, what I keep seeing the most is what they're waiting for is what I'm sure a lot of you guys are waiting for. Will Iron Man follow the full course that the character did? Because you’ve got to remember when the comic book came out, to have a character that was an alcoholic and all of that and all those troubles, that was a big thing in the '70s. So is that here? Do you see that in this movie or not? To see troubled people, all those things, all that is what they've been asking. I'm glad that they're concerned and I can't wait for them to come and see the movie and find out what happens. That's what I just try to do, encourage them. I think this may end up being one of Marvel's best movies because they were able to stay true because they were doing it themselves.”
Can you talk about your character?
“Well, my character is a young man that grew up in the military, went to college as a result of the military. Father was in the military, grandfather was in the military. So I am truly a son of the USA. Sometimes a son wants to leave home just to venture out, but then he always makes his way back. That's my character.”
What’s the coolest thing you do action-wise?
“One day when we were up in Lone Pine, the freeway, I don't remember, the 14 freeway was blocked because there's all this wind coming down. So they blocked it off. I've got to be on set. Set is about 20 miles away. I know we've got the Department of Defense working with us. There's an Air Force base nearby. So I'm like, ‘I'm not going to make it to work for the next two hours.’ I called them and I was like calling the Air Force and telling them to send a helicopter for me. They sent it. I got to arrive on set with this huge…we landed on top of a sand dune. That was the coolest thing.”
When you stepped out, did you have sunglasses on, looking cool?
“I had the whole thing. I had the whole thing. They saluted as they flew off.”
