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IESB
chats with actor/director Jon Favreau on the success of Iron Man,
what we can expect in the sequel and why he is back to acting in a
romantic comedy.
{sidebar id=1}What is
Jon Favreau doing on the set of John Hamburg's I Love You Man
starring Paul Rudd and Jason Segel? That was the question that the
small group of online press had when we were told that we would be
interviewing Jon Favreau while we visited the set of Dreamworks' I
Love You Man earlier this week.
Shooting
at Hollywood Center Studios, I Love You Man is a R-Rated comedy about
man about to get married who actively seeks out a male friend to be
his best man for the wedding.
Favreau
plays the character of Barry, the ultimate alpha male married to
Jaime Pressly's character of Janet Mills who is best friend to
Rashida Jones' character of Shandi Dawson who is engaged to Paul
Rudd's character Greg Moton, got it? Good.
Jon
Favreau was gracious to talk to us for a good twenty minutes while in
between takes.
With
the continuing success of Iron Man that was the first topic of
conversation that we got into. He also did mention why he felt that
it was important to go back to work as an actor and why he chose this
project.
Of
course our conversation would not be complete unless we talked about
the success of Iron Man , Captain America and what we can expect from
Tony Stark in the near future.
IESB:
Iron Man did really good.
Jon
Favreau: Ya. Really, really good. You guys were the only ones who
gave a shit before Comic Con. Then since Comic Con everything just
started to build, then people got excited by it, and then we just
were at the MTV awards a couple of days ago. Everybody online voted
for the movie, we got some golden popcorn, and you could tell by the
reviews and box office that everybody seems to have jumped on board
and really loves the movie. That is really, really gratifying for
all of us who worked so hard for so many years on the thing.
IESB:
So now you are back to being in front of the camera and goofing off?
JF:
Yeah, it was pretty interesting. I am definitely a supporting
character and this is a big ensemble comedy. There is a lot of
sitting around in your little trailer. It was like right after Iron
Man and Im on it, and everybody was like Why are you here?.
I said to Robert [Downy Jr.] Its really weird to go from
directing a big, big movie, and going around the world with you for
three weeks, and having the red carpet rolled out for us all across
Europe, Asia, Australia, and then you come back. You are sitting in
your little trailer doing a little comedy. He says Its the
best thing you could do. Trap wood and carry water. Its very
easy to lose your bearings when something very wonderful happens, or
when something really devastating happens. It tends to throw your
whole life off. I know when Ive experienced that in the past it
throws you off. You lose your bearings. It was very nice to come
here and work for a director like John Hamburg, who is a really good
guy, and its a really great ensemble of performers. It was great
just to be able to dive into something where all I had to worry about
was being funny, knowing my lines, and being a good scene partner.
IESB:
What makes you a good Alpha Male?
JF: In
this movie? I dont know. I think there is a little bit of that
in all of us and you just play that out. Paul Rudd plays a guy who
is very sensitive, so its very fun to play the opposite of him,
and just make his life a living hell.
IESB:
Are you getting in any bar brawls in this?
JF:
No, Im not that kind of Alpha Male. Im just more like a
shitty, insensitive, angry person. The real key is to just be a guy
who lets anger dictate their inner thoughts. If you just find things
to be angry about its very easy to be an asshole. Thats my key
to the character.
IESB:
What is it like working with Jaime Pressly?
JF:
She is great, I know her from Earl. I have worked with her a
little bit, but now I play her husband. There is a lot of improv
going on, on the set, because John really encourages that, so she is
real quick and real fun. Its just exactly the way I like to work.
He wrote the script but hes not precious with it, and he creates
an environment that I try to create as well. Its giving people
freedom within the parameters of the scene and the story. Just to
have a good time and bring themselves to it. Four out of five times
you say things that are not good. But one in five times you come up
with something interesting. In the editing room you find a way to
work that all in.
IESB:
How big is your role in this? How many days are you shooting on
this?
JF:
Im shooting about 2 weeks all told. Some of those are like
wedding scenes and things like that, so I dont have a big part,
but the scenes I am in are a lot of fun. Look, its hard to
schedule me into a movie. It takes somebody to go out of their way
to make it fit my schedule because I like to stay in town. When you
are working on a film like Iron Man, that thing takes two years
and thats your top priority, so it has to squeeze between your day
job gigs.
IESB:
Are you still working on [Iron Man] DVD stuff?
JF:
Yeah, we are going to do a commentary. I just got delivered a whole
bunch of extras that look really, really good. We had cameras on the
set all the time. They put together something for Iron Man
that spans from the first story meetings, to designing the suit, all
the way through mixing it up at Skywalker Ranch, through the
premiere. There are hours and hours of great stuff that will be
available eventually. We have to look over all of that stuff so
there is still a lot of work to be done. Then there is trying to
figure out where the hell we are now and what we are doing.
IESB:
Would you launch into another two year movie after this?
JF:
Yeah, I would do it. Hopefully well figure out how to get Iron
Man 2 going and Ill be involved with that. You have got to out
do what you did before. So, if the last one took two years, we would
need at least that to do what we are talking about, or at least
thinking about. Nobody knew about Iron Man, and that was a
disadvantage in some ways, but nobody expected anything. I think
people were pleased based on the fact that they had no preconceptions
about the project. Now, we have a movie that people seem to like and
you cant give them less. You have to give them more. There are
challenges that come with that as well as the benefit of people
already understanding who he is and the character. We told the
origin story so where do you go from here? There are plenty of story
lines to explore from the 40 years of history from that character.
IESB:
Have you chosen anything?
JF:
No, we havent. I havent been hired to do it yet. I know that
Robert and I have talked a lot about what types of things we would
like to do, and how to play into the strengths of what we discovered
last time around. I look forward to rolling up my sleeves.
Hopefully that wont be too long in coming.
IESB:
Kevin Feige said that he was pretty confident that you guys would get
something going pretty quickly. Peter Billingsley said the same
thing as well.
JF:
Yeah, Kevin is just a gem of a guy. He really walked the line very
well of being the guy who is in charge of movies, and the studio, as
well as being my producer and somebody who oversaw the way that the
source material was being dealt with. That is a lot of hats for a
guy to wear. It was a fairly new position for him. I dont think
that he has ever had the responsibility he had on Iron Man
before. I know that he has worked on The Hulk since then, but
its great to have a mix of somebody who respects the source material
and doesnt just treat it like something you can use or discard as
you see fit, and was very supportive in getting us what we needed to
make a good movie. The casting of Robert, the visual effects budget,
working with the right vendors, but he had a very high standard of
quality control in the film. He was also very helpful in helping me
understand the genre, and what people expect from it, while still
giving Robert and I the room to have a very different take on the
material. We broke a lot of the rules that the genre normally has.
We have all been rewarded for taking the chances that we did.
IESB:
With all the success on such a huge movie it may be more difficult to
get back to doing something smaller like Made.
JF: It
is because you have to make hay while the sun is shining. You are
only relevant for so long as a director. Youve only got so many
movies in you, especially when they are that big, and I think the
smaller movies like Made were appropriate for earlier in my
career. I didnt know what I was doing that much, but I had a lot
of inspiration, and smaller movies were the new voice. They had an
edgier take and it lends itself to newer filmmakers. Now that Ive
been around the block I dont think I could make an edgy small
movie now. Im too old, Im a suburban Dad, but I can bring a
certain different take on a genre film like Iron Man or Elf.
There is a clear cut genre and I could maybe do a fresh take on
that, so right now Im interested in trying to bring a fresh voice
to a genre that maybe doesnt always have the originality that the
fans would like.
IESB:
I know that Samuel L. Jackson talked about expanding Nick Furys
role for a second film.
JF:
Oh, good.
IESB:
So, its news to you?
JF:
Im not in the loop on that unfortunately. I think that Marvel has
their hands full right now. They have another big movie coming out
right now, with The Incredible Hulk, and thats coming out in
a couple of weeks. I know from when I was in that position on Iron
Man a lot of the heavy lifting for the studio comes in at this
stage in the game. They are partnering up with Universal trying to
figure out how to roll out the marketing campaign for that, so a lot
is riding on that film. I know that they are done creatively working
on it, but that is only have the game, so I think right now its a
small studio. There are not a lot of people and Im sure they have
their hands full on that one. Hopefully when the dust settles
everybody will be ready to get their head in the game and try to make
some more movies.
IESB:
Its obvious that in the Hulk there is the super soldier serum and
Captain Americas shield in your film. So, is there a story there
already with Captain America that you guys will put in?
JF:
Yeah, truth be told its more like instinctively we are gravitating
towards combining certain properties, but you dont really discover
how that happens until you roll your sleeves up and get into the
story telling. You do casting. There are a lot of ideas floating
around. We will have conversations as we all gather and paw the
ground in the parking lots. Well kick rocks around and start
having conversations where we let our imaginations go wild. Its
not like weve sat down with a dry erase board and wrote through
the whole line of stories. For me Im pretty confident about who
Iron Man is, what that character is, and what the rules of that world
are. Maybe Marvel knows, but I have no idea how you relate that
reality to the reality of Thor, which seems like a very different set
of rules to that universe. Captain America I get, I understand how
that would relate, or The Hulk. Especially if you are working
towards the idea of doing The Avengers how do you make those
worlds all feel consistent with one another in the look of the film,
the casting of the film, and then the look of the visual effect.
IESB:
I guess you will just have to direct all of them.
JF:
[laughs] I would love to. Clearly I have stated that The
Avengers would be fun. But I look at their release schedule and
they have announced Iron Man 2 for 2010 and then Avengers
for 2011. I know from experience there is no way I could. I dont
know what they have in mind, but there is no way that The
Avengers could be done in a year. Either they are thinking about
somebody else doing it or they have something up their sleeve that I
dont know. I know these movies take time to get right. I know
that you have to have a good script. You have to understand where
you are headed when you go into it, otherwise you are relying on
blind luck and hard work. Its good to have a game plan,
especially at this stage in the game, its important to understand
where all of this is going. All of these properties are working
together and I know Kevin has been very diligent about trying to keep
a consistency. I will look forward to having these conversations
with the guys at Marvel, to laying out all the puzzle pieces and
seeing how they fit together.
IESB:
2010 is pretty soon if you think about it. Is it just an
understanding with Robert, you, and everyone just knows it will be a
five year thing and you launch into it?
JF: I
dont know how that works. Ive never worked in that world
before. I have never done a sequel to a film, nor have I in the past
worked on anything where a sequel felt organic. I think its the
nature of Iron Man because it comes from a serialized piece of
source material, that it does lend itself to having sequels. Its
all new ground for me, its new ground for Marvel, although they
have been partnered up and done sequels with other studios. There
are a lot of different approaches you could take. Hopefully we end
up going for a sequel that is going to be bigger and better than the
first one. Thats not always the case with sequels. Sometimes you
end up trying to do just rush, and hit a release date. Hopefully
this sequel will be driven by the material and driven by good ideas.
I think that is what got Marvel the success that they have had as an
independent studio. I have no doubt that they are going to continue
with that philosophy of letting the source material, and the quality
of the story, dictate all the other decisions. They are not shackled
down by what a normal studio, with a release schedule, has to contend
with.
IESB:
But the team is pretty much the same?
JF: I
know that all the actors are definitely in active negotiations. All
of that has been agreed to, which is really encouraging, because I
think the cast was a big part of the success of that as much if not
more than Iron Man the character. I think that as long as you
got all those people together, and you have a solid take on the
material, then I expect great things.
IESB:
Demon in a Bottle?
JF:
Yeah, I mean that one is definitely brought up a lot. How do you
handle Demon in a Bottle and when does it come in? I think it
happened in the 80s, which was 20 years after the first Tales
of Suspense so when do you play that card? When do you play the
Demon in a Bottle card? We sort of tip our hat to it, and
certainly there is a lot to be mined there, but its all a puzzle.
How does it fit in? Demon in a Bottle also relates to War
Machine and James Rhodess arc. What villains are you dealing
with and how much effort do you put into revealing a whole set of
characters. We really spent most of the time dealing with Tony in
this one, explaining who he is, and why he is the way that he is so
that now Iron Man comes to life. You then have to reveal, I
think, some heavy duty, heavy weight bad guys that you could then
counter balance this incredibly powerful super hero.
IESB:
You introduce The Ten Rings...
JF: We
have The Ten Rings in there, but the Mandarin is still there.
Im glad that we didnt try to attack the Mandarin the first time
around. There is a lot that is very relevant about that character,
in the pool of the landscape that we find ourselves in, but there is
something off putting and distasteful about the way that the Mandarin
had been presented back in the 60s. I dont think that is
relevant anymore. How do you maintain the core spirit of what makes
that villain so formidable without having something that either
seemed out of our reality, as far as what his abilities are, or the
way he is depicted.
IESB:
In Demon in a Bottle there werent really a lot of villains.
It was when Tony realized he wants to be Iron Man again James was
like I dont think so.
JF: So
you have to create. I also want to see what other movies are doing.
It seems that Hancock is dealing with a lot of those issues
too. The comic book fans might see Demon in a Bottle as a
fresh story line but I havent seen Hancock yet. From what
Ive seen it seems there is a lot of imagery that seems to be
shared. Him flying through billboards and things. The idea of the
hero whose biggest enemy is himself, and him fighting through his
demons, you want to come at the audience with something fresh. You
dont want to feel like you are echoing something that somebody
else is doing. I think you have to look at the comics, look at what
else Marvel is doing, but then you have to look at the landscape of
super hero films. There are so many out there. I think that part of
the reason that Iron Man was so successful was that we really
chose to break new ground in a new area tonally, cast wise, the way
we depict the hero, what his abilities are. It felt fresh in a genre
that is beginning to feel stale if its not done with the proper
amount of inspiration and a strong voice or tone. I think as the
summer roles out, and Im really curious about The Dark Knight
to be honest with you. That was this looming presence that we knew
was going to be a great film. I have no doubt that its going to
be phenomenal. I think our big saving grace was the fact that we had
a couple of months between that film and us and there was room for
both of us. We werent fighting for shelf space. Even though we
werent going head to head, it was very clear that we could not
take this character that on paper could seem very similar to Batman,
and I have no doubt that just the inception of Iron Man was a
reaction to the DC. It was definitely borrowed a lot from DC because
here you have the billionaire bachelor guy, who was struggling with
inner conflict, and he has no super powers. He invents his own suit
and his abilities come from himself. Hes a self-made hero. We
had to really steer clear of everything that The Dark Knight
was doing. I have tremendous respect for their cast, for
[Christopher] Nolan, and so I want to see what they do. I definitely
dont want to fight for the same territory as them. There is
plenty of room to tell these stories. As a fan Im really looking
forward to it and I have a lot of respect for the way they approach
the material too. He has no second unit on his films. He does all
the directing himself. If they are going to do some IMAX work then
they shoot it in IMAX. He put together a cast in a way that broke
ground for me to be able to use the cast that I did. They made sure
the script was perfect before they started shooting it and thats
not typical for all super hero films. A lot of times they just throw
them together and try to do them as inexpensively as they can. They
try to chase the poster and chase the date. They put a lot of care
into that film. Im looking forward to see how it pays off. From
everything Ive seen so far my hat is off to them. I look forward
to checking that film out. I have something to talk about, so thats
pretty kick ass.
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