El Capitan Theatre, the film’s stars seemed to be channeling their
characters for the over-the-top event, which featured cheerleaders in
provocative red and gold uniforms, fireworks and throngs of fans.
And then there was
seemed a bit skeptical of the entire affair but dutifully followed the
smile-and-wave assignment given to the stars of summer blockbusters.
That good-soldier attitude fits his character, Air Force Lt. Col.
who spends much of the film torn between his heart and his marching
orders. The 45-year-old actor had plenty of conflicted feelings to draw
on for the role; “Iron Man 2” was the Oscar-nominated actor’s first
experience in a big-budget special effects movie, and there was a lot
of anxiety amid the explosions.
Cheadle had not seen the film before the premiere
and, after the credits rolled, he admitted that he had feared the heavy
machinery might have spun out of control. “I didn’t know what to
expect,” he said. “This is the first time I saw it. I’m very happy.” He
didn’t look especially thrilled when giving his review, but then again,
that’s probably par for the course, as Cheadle has described himself as
someone who is rarely satisfied with the finished product.
There are a lot of new faces in this return to “Iron Man” — Rourke,
from the franchise in a spat over personality and a proposed pay cut;
he was reportedly the first cast member signed for the franchise and,
somewhat surprisingly, the movie’s highest-paid actor.
Marvel Studios,
is Stark’s best friend and in this new film becomes an armored hero
himself — he goes by the indelicate name of War Machine — which was
foreshadowed in the first installment. For Cheadle, there was also the
awkwardness of replacing a friend. Cheadle and Howard were costars in
“Crash,” the 2004 film that won the Oscar for best picture, and Cheadle
was a producer on “Crash” who championed the casting of Howard in that
film.
“I didn’t actually know the (Howard) situation, and
I just wanted to kind of stay out of it,” Cheadle said a few days
before the premiere as he sat watching the NBA playoffs at his
offices. “I just wanted to make sure that I was not taking a role away
from him. Once they had moved off of him and it was clear he wasn’t
coming back, they offered it to me. I think they gave me five hours to
decide. I was at my kid’s birthday party. They were on a tight schedule
and needed an answer.”
Cheadle didn’t have to think too long. He loved
Marvel Comics as a kid and gravitated toward that publisher’s singular
brand of cosmic melodramas with flawed, conflicted heroes. Also, after
putting together an eclectic resume — he was Oscar-nominated for “Hotel
Rwanda” and made memorable turns in all-star ensemble films such as
“Crash,” “Boogie Nights” and “Ocean’s Eleven” — he was ready for a tour
of duty as an action figure.
War Machine is gun-metal and gun-loaded —
essentially his armor is a less-sleek version of Iron Man’s suit that
has been augmented with “a ridiculous amount of firepower,” as Favreau
puts it — and has been part of the Marvel universe for years. When
Cheadle took on the role, the studio shipped over a mountain of
reference material tracking the Rhodey character back to his first
appearance in 1979, but Cheadle’s eyes glazed over after a while. Every
few seasons, the writer of the comics would change and so would Rhodey.
“Marvel sent me every iteration of Rhodey that has
existed, which is a million different people,” Cheadle said with a
chuckle. “There’s no real mean there other than the fact that he is
guys. And that friendship is what keeps getting pushed and pulled in
the second movie, particularly: How does a friend take care of a friend
who’s not taking care of himself?”
In the film, the U.S. military wants to confiscate
the armor of Iron Man for national defense, which puts Rhodey in a
tense position as he tries to protect his friend. When Stark starts
going off the rails in his personal life, though, Rhodey feels
betrayed, and he steals the War Machine suit while Stark is getting
drunk at his own birthday party. Favreau said it’s an essential part of
the film’s physics.
“One of the main tensions in this film is someone
being an individual or part of a team — the lone gunslinger or the
person who is ready to help his partners,” the director said. “Rhodey,
he’s a character that came up through the Air Force, which is all about
teamwork and support. No man can go it alone. Pilots are individuals,
but they rely greatly on the technology and their trainers and the
ground crew and their wingman. That’s Rhodey’s background. Then you
have
Cheadle brings a very different energy to the
character than the dashing yet frosty Howard; there’s plenty of
high-tech warfare in this film, but the most interesting conflicts seem
to happen behind the eyes of Cheadle’s less-aloof version of Rhodey.
Favreau admits that he was anxious about the
departure of Howard from the cast, even though other films in the same
sector weathered similar cast changes (
“Don and Robert have tremendous chemistry together,” Favreau said.
On screen, the role handoff is handled with a wink.
Early in the film, Stark is in front of a hostile congressional
committee when a new witness is called — his best friend Rhodey. When
it’s Cheadle who walks in, not Howard, Downey says, “Hey buddy, didn’t
expect to see you here.” The military man doesn’t miss a beat: “Look,
it’s me, I’m here. Deal with it. Let’s move on.”
A few weeks after Cheadle got the role he (almost
literally) ran into Howard in the NBC-Universal parking lot. “We had a
talk and put it all to bed. I was glad it happened. I think people can
kind of get cloudy in this business sometimes and think it’s all about
the job and success. It can be seductive to try to get every role. But
if you don’t have personal relationships, if you don’t have blood
beating in your body, what’s it all about?”
in 1964, the son of a clinical psychologist father and a psychology
teacher mother. He’s a thinking-man’s actor, but he grows restless with
the notion of limiting his pursuits to just reading scripted lines. In
addition to “Crash,” he had producer credits on the 2008 thriller
“Traitor” as well as the 2007 documentary “Darfur Now,” which spoke to
his impassioned work to bring attention to the genocide in the
Cheadle has two daughters,
their first child), and he brought the whole family to the “Iron Man 2”
premiere.
“My girls, though, they have no interest in this
Iron Man stuff,” Cheadle said with a shrug. “I mean, c’mon, War
Machine, that is a total boy thing. I mean, look at the guy. He’s
covered in guns. Kill, kill, shoot, shoot, fly, kill, shoot … that is
so a boy thing.”
Turning himself into a human action figure was a
strange but ultimately satisfying experience, he said, even if it was a
little outside his comfort zone.
Cheadle, most recently seen in the brutal “
as a deep-cover narcotics detective, will return to the hustlers and
handcuffs sector with the 2011 release of “The Guard,” which has him
playing an FBI agent in a cast that also includes
It’s familiar underworld turf for Cheadle, who made his breakthrough
with the metal-toothed malice of a killer named Mouse Alexander in
The actor says he seeks out great scripts and great
directors, but he does try to keep some variety in the career mosaic
he’s shaping.
“Are we driven more by our near misses?” he asked
when talking about picking his parts. “It’s an interesting way to think
about things. I enjoy doing comedic roles. I think those are roles I
have done and people see it and it works for them, but they seem sort
of surprised by it still. I did stand-up for a minute, and comedy is
some of my favorite stuff to do. And it’s some of the hardest stuff to
do.”
New challenges have never swayed Cheadle. He
received largely positive reviews for his funny work in “Talk to Me”
even if the biopic of radio DJ Petey Greene was shrugged off as too pat
and sentimental, and he was unforgettable as
the exasperated anarchist among the slick con men of “Ocean’s Eleven”;
he returned for the two sequels and has, it turns out, now made five
films with buddy
Cheadle says he walks onto a movie set with the goal
of not stealing scenes — he looks more for a submarine approach,
staying contained and under the surface. “I want the movie to be good.
You don’t do that by stealing scenes. You do that by giving them away,”
he said, suggesting that Favreau’s themes of teamwork apply to film
sets as well. For “Iron Man 2,” with Cheadle wearing another actor’s
role and uniform, competing for scenes with Downey would have a
dereliction of duty.
“We had a lot of fun going back and forth, but it
was really challenging most days not to fall into his patois. It’s
seductive. You find yourself wanting to play back and forth and both of
us have the similar kind of wit. But my character, Rhodey, he is not
that guy. He couldn’t play with Tony like that, he wouldn’t be able to
or interested. That’s not his mission so it wasn’t mine.”
Now that “Iron Man 2” is off to a flying start, is
Cheadle setting his sights on a long career as War Machine in future
Marvel films? “I have no idea,” he said. “I’m not just trying to be
coy. Look, I didn’t know what we were doing on any given day on the
set. You think I know what’s happening with the next movie? I imagine
there will be a next movie if this one does good, but I don’t know what
it will be or what it will look like.”
He offered a slight smile before adding: “Maybe Terrence will be back and I’ll be out …”
———
(c) 2010, Los Angeles Times.
Visit the Los Angeles Times on the Internet at http://www.latimes.com/
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
