Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark is one of the most important characters in Captain America: Civil War. The film pits its titular super soldier against Iron Man in a bid to protect Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier. However, Downey almost didn't reprise his role for the film.
“We had to convince Robert Downey, who was not under contract to do ‘Civil War,’ to do that movie and to actually play a bad guy,” Joe Russo said on The Big Ticket.
Anthony Russo then explained how they got Downey to sign on for the film. "A lot of meetings in Malibu,” he said.
Joe added, “You say, ‘Look, we’re going to try and do something really risky here. We want to deconstruct, we want to inject some edge and some tension into these stories.’ And he has to keep telling these stories, so he wants to play something compelling. So when you say to him, ‘Hey, you get to be a villain and it’s going to make your next few movies a lot more interesting and give you more to play,’ it’s not that hard to sell.”
Directed by Joe and Anthony Russo, Avengers: Endgame stars Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, Chris Evans as Captain America, Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow, Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, Brie Larson as Captain Marvel, Paul Rudd as Ant-Man, Don Cheadle as War Machine, Karen Gillan as Nebula, Danai Gurira as Okoye and Bradley Cooper as Rocket, with Gwyneth Paltrow Pepper Potts, Jon Favreau as Happy Hogan, Benedict Wong as Wong, Tessa Thompson as Valkyrie and Josh Brolin as Thanos. The film is in theaters now.
(via Variety)