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What's left to be said about Iron Man? It opens today and has a leisurely two weeks to prove its mettle before Disney's Prince Caspian lands in theaters on May 16th and Indiana Jones muscles in a week later. Should the film do as well as Paramount and Marvel Studios secretly hope, there are, of course, plans afoot to turn this solo outing into a trilogy. Although at last week's press junket for the film, the four writers on hand all offered different takes on where they'd like the potential franchise go next and director Jon Favreau insisted that he has not been signed for any further films, that could change on a moment's notice. The film's leads, Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow, were both directly asked if they'd come back for a second and third helping and ... well, what do you expect them to say? SuicideGirls was on hand for the roundtable discussions as Downey and Paltrow took questions from the peanut gallery.

Suicide Girls: Have you seen the movie?

Robert Downey Jr.: Mmm-hmm. Wednesday at the Mann's Chinese will be the first time my folks have seen it in a done and polished version, which is actually quite different from the last one we saw.

SG: Did you choose this project for your kids?

RD: Well, yeah. And the funny thing is, when I was researching, I asked for every single piece of information they had on Iron Man and they were like, "No, no, we're gonna send you a package" and I was like, "May I have every single piece of information you have?" And when the merchandising started coming out I was like, "May I have one of every single thing that is part of the merchandising?" and they were like, "Robert, that would be a truck ..." and I was like, "May I have ..." and they were like, "No problem." There's all the cool stuff, the nerf thing and the sippy cups, the slurpies and the whole deal and there was this little book that was like this big and probably cost twenty-five cents to make, this little flipbook, and at the end it says, "Iron Man defeated the evil Obadiah Stane and he would never hurt anybody again" and then I looked at the front and it said, "For ages four plus." It was pretty wild and cool to think that I could be participating in this tradition, being twice-removed but pretty directly involved in something that can affect that wide an audience.

SG: What was more difficult, doing the physical stuff or playing the dramatic scenes as Tony?

RD: Jon says that, unlike most actors, I tend to approach things like it's a race or an event or a tri-athalon, and so as a matter of course I have to be in good enough shape to make it to the end of this movie and feel as good as I did before I started. I think we all know how work and our vocations and the times nowadays tend to just grab your kidneys and squeeze all the chi out of them and not really care. It's very result-oriented, but all we have is the process of our days while fulfilling the needs, largely, of others. I'm always kind of trying to prioritize where I'm at right now and I feel like I focus my energy like I'm my own pit crew. And then we have people who are awesome and are gonna help me or whatever and then the job, the car, kind of drives itself. The car that's driving itself is this hungry, question-asking machine. "Why do we have to do this? Why do we have to do it like this right now? Do we have to do it like this? No? What can we do to make it better?" When I have a feeling about something, historically, if I follow it that feeling turns into something better than if I didn't follow it. To me, it's a long game and it's trying to stay in the right headspace. I prioritize things and a lot of it has to do with maintenance. I don't worry whether I can throw the ball fast anymore. I pretty much throw heat consistently. That's my job. It's not my life, it's my job.

SG: Some people thought you were off-beat casting for this film. Why did they come to you with it?

RD: They didn't come to me with it. I went to meet Jon and I was like, "I'm the guy for this" and he goes, "I know. It ain't gonna happen" and I was like, "I think it is" and he was like, "Well, I can tell you it's not." I was thinking about Plainview in There Will Be Blood -- "When it comes to the showdown ..." I was like ,"Give me a showdown, dude ..." cause that's what I do. I've been doing it for so long. I'm not a kid or a guy who's been around as a three-hit wonder. I'm like, let's see who throws the ball fast, motherfucker, cause I'm warmed up. Let's do it. We did a screen test. I think I got the part pretty much five seconds after the screen test started. That's life, right? You show up. And it's like, "Isn't that humiliating?" And I was like, "No." I guess I could go that way, but ... I'm on my side here. I'm not gonna say, "Gimme a shot, gimme a shot" and then suddenly say, "Well, I'm not going to screen test." I see that happen. I see so many people screw up their lives and their careers by not doing things that they feel or believe are beneath them or you start taking yourself quite seriously and think that you have to be really, really picky.

SG: Did it help that you like improv as much as Jon?

RD: Yeah, that was the thing too -- I learned these three scenes and I learned them so well that, if you woke me up in the middle of the night, I could recite them to you. Then I wrote them out illegibly and I learned them well enough to be able to spit them out like an acronym. I wrote it as an acronym and then I wrote this crazy treasure map of all the improvs or ideas that I could say besides what was written. This is why it wound up being hell on the writers later on, because I tended to do this when I was tired. I would come in and throw the script down and say, "I got an idea!" Then we'd shoot after lunch. I dare anybody to try to prepare as hard as I do when I'm in that mode. When I was doing Chaplin I was absolutely out of my mind in this relentless pursuit of erection. I couldn't delve deeply enough into it. This was easy, this was three scenes.

SG: What do you think Pepper Potts sees in Tony?

RD: Well, there's this weird thing that brings people together. You get in this position sometimes and you have an assistant. The truth is, I could probably do everything, but then I'd just go mad. But you actually ask somebody to try to be a satellite moon to your energy-sucking planet and try to do something that goes somewhere and you realize that this balancing thing happens. Then you realize that the moon is controlling the tides and that without the moon you'll be pretty soon into extinction. Which also isn't true cause everyone can take care of themselves, but I think speaking in the mythology of the story, we couldn't have it just be, "Yes, Mr. Stark." It ain't, what's her name, the Bond girl -- [Downey's phone starts to ring persistently] That's me, sorry. I think she's kind of like his conscience in a way. Let me turn this garbage off. It's probably someone telling me I could have a better erection. That's the crazy thing now, you dig into your bag and it's like, "Cialis! On Sale!" And you're like, "What the fuck happened to my life?" I'm gonna see exactly what it is to see if I'm right. Here it is. Let's see. [Reads the text on his phone] "Uncut flicks shot on a sex-filled ..." Man, they're poisoning my mind! Send! Command! Sex! Dick! Fuck, man, what is wrong with this country?

SG: Did you ever think the movie was going to be too hard-edged? Iron Man does kill some guys.

RD: I thought we needed to go further. I think the thing is that you build something that kills -- that's the whole point. This machine. The whole point of this movie is a really gung-ho, right-wing, crazy thing. It's like, "I don't believe in the way America is doing it, they're corrupt, so I'll go kill a bunch of motherfuckers!" So really, you have to parlay that back into what is the mythology of the story. Any Joseph Campbell freak can come in and break it all down, I'm talking about what makes this applicable to us in the 21st century and us Gen-X types and how can our kids relate to that and how can our parents understand that and ... [laughs maniacally] how can we make it fun for the whole family? This isn't the '80s anymore. Audiences are too savvy, if you ask me.

SG: If there's a sequel, what do you want to explore?

RD: Well, if you ask me the next one is about, what do you do with the rest of your life once you've completely changed and you've created this thing that has the power to take life. Essentially, you've been made into a God and a human being who has been metaphorically made into a God is not gonna turn out so well. Their conscience is gonna come to bear. I think he should do something wrong, I think that would be a good reason. The demon in the bottle, the drinking and all that stuff, would be a good way to confront his age, to confront his doubts, the fact that Pepper maybe gets a boyfriend and he's like, "I'm so happy for you" [makes drinky motion] and then he shows up in the Iron Man suit like, "What's he got that I don't got?" I tend to think like Shane Black in these situations. No one thinks like Shane Black, but stuff that really speaks truth to what happens between people and you don't talk about the gag, you talk about ... the weapons and stuff has to be cooler, too. We would go to Shane Black once in a while, Jon and I, and it was like going to Yoda. We'd bring him salmon and blueberries and we'd sit there and he'd never take a penny and he'd kind of go, "You know this thing where he's just futzing with it in the lab and he goes like that? Everything for six miles just evaporates." That idea, that your brain and your invention has created something so destructive, it's the Manhattan Project myth. We have become, whatever, the destroyer of worlds. You know, people ask me, "What makes you think you could get it up for another one of these" and I'm like, "Are you kidding me? We're just getting started here!"



Suicide Girls: [To Gwyeth] Iron Man kills people in this movie, which superheroes don't usually do. Terrorists, I guess ... Were you aware that this was sort of like that, a little more realistic?

GP: I was not aware. When Jon called me he said, "There's no script." He said, "There is a script but I'm not sending it to you because it's horrible and we're re-writing it now." So I never fully understood what was happening in those big set pieces and like I said, I still haven't seen it ... I think I'm gonna wait and see it in LA at Mann's Chinese and do the whole experience.

SG: Some people are surprised that you're in this movie.

GP: Uh-huh. I don't know why people are surprised.

SG: 'Cause you don't do movies like this.

GP: Well, I just haven't. Doesn't mean I wouldn't. The reason I wanted to do it was because the group of people were so brilliant. How do you not do that movie? I don't know. I hadn't worked, really, since I was pregnant with Apple when I did Proof and that was a long time ago. That came out a ways after we had shot it so it seemed like I had worked sooner than I had. And in that time I had done a few little things, but not a big part or anything. And I kind of wanted to go back to work. I started to feel the thing, like, "I have something to say, I'm here because I have something to say and I have a way to say it." I thought, "If, when my son is about a year, there's something that seems like it will be fun and inspiring and not too demanding, I'll do it" and Jon called and he explained kind of what the movie was, what it was gonna be kind of at face value and what the other metaphors in the movie were. He explained my character and he was like, "She's gonna be great and it's gonna be fun, you're gonna have good scenes" so I said, "Okay, I'll do it." And I'm so happy that I did because I just had such a good time. Those guys are brilliant. I grew up always wanting to work with Robert and Jeff Bridges? It's the Big Lebowski! He's a God. He's an acting God.

SG: Why were you nervous about going back to work?

GP: Well, because once you've been so ensconced in family life, it's hard, the idea that you'll not see your kids every day and not be the one putting your son down for his nap. It feels sickening. It feels terrible and it's a hard adjustment to make. It's so difficult to find the balance and to figure out how to honor yourself as an artist and as a woman with independence and a vision and creativity. Being at home seven days a week just doesn't work -- something has to give somewhere, so that's why I feel like I'm really excited to be back working, but I'll be careful about how much I work. I'll never work the way that I did in my 20s when I worked all the time, there's just no way. And I don't think I could do a real starring role yet where I'm in every scene, because it's too much time away from home. That's why I like great supporting parts -- that's just right for me right now.

SG: How do you see Tony and Pepper's relationship? Is it romantic?

GP: I think it's hard to define. There's a real love between them that's sort of fraternal in a way, she's a bit mothering, but there's also this kind of chemistry, but I think at the very bottom of it there's just a lot of love there. I think she is able to see his potential even when he's the kind of less good version of himself at the beginning, I think she always believes in him and believes he'll be able to get there, somehow. I think the road he takes is not an easy one for her to stand back and watch from, but that's his journey and she's prepared to stick with him, no matter what.

SG: Were you nervous about committing to the sequels?

GP: At the time it just felt so foreign to me, like, "What do you mean you sign up for three before you've done one? I don't understand." But now I'm so happy that I did because it was such a good job that I would be so happy to just keep going, keep working with those guys.

SG: Did you ever wish she wasn't a damsel in distress and had her own havoc to wreak?

GP: I don't think she's a damsel in distress.

SG: Well, there's a big guy in an iron suit who's gonna crush her.

GP: Well, there's a guy in a big suit that's gonna crush Iron Man too. It's just, how do we fight back? I didn't see her as a damsel in distress, I see her as a really intelligent multi-tasker. I think she really gives credence to that old adage that behind every great man there's a great woman, cause she is great. She's so non-judgmental, she's so giving, she's very cool.

SG: Can you talk about shooting the scene where you reconnect Iron Man's heart after it becomes detached?

GP: How did we approach that, I'm trying think. Robert never wanted to shoot the script, he was constantly like, ripping it in half and throwing it against the wall, so usually we started with, "Well, these are the things that have to happen in the scene and these are the points that we have to hit and this is the kind of mini-arc of it." So we would kind of start there and then talk and get somewhere. But that was a really fun scene to shoot.

SG: That's the scene where he sort of realizes that he can't live without you, literally.

GP: Right, and there's also the metaphor of the changing of his heart and all of that stuff, so it was fun to shoot. We had a good day. I haven't seen it, but I hope it's alright.

SG: Is improv in your comfort zone?

GP:Well, it wasn't but it became. I didn't know I would be able to do it, but it was a lot scarier in theory than in practice. It ended up being really fun and just working in such a different way, it's very re-invigorating. You approach things one way and then you kind of get stuck in the way of how you approach things and anytime you're at work and something's scary it's a good, cause it's just forcing you to expand and try things in a new way.

SG: Were you surprised to see any of the special effects footage blended into your scenes after you did them?

GP: All of my scenes are practical, there's only the one at the end where the bad guy comes out of the ground and all of that and I was looking at a tennis ball. I wasn't there when they were talking about all the other stuff, the flying and the this and the that. They were excited about it so I'm interested to see it, but my stuff was all real.

SG: Of your films, do you have one that you loved that didn't do as well as you'd hoped -- one that got away?

GP: I think my brother's film, The Good Night, because I think people came to it with the prejudice that he was my brother and because we grew up in this family. I remember reading a great review, actually, in New York Magazine where the guy kind of copped to the fact that he walked in with an attitude. I can't remember what it said, but in essence it was like, "This is gonna piss me off because this guy thinks he's a filmmaker -- but actually he is one" and he really loved the film. The people who loved the film really got it, but I think a lot of times we come to things with prejudice and with preconceptions and it's so limiting for us. I felt like he didn't get a fair shake in that way.

SG: You said you're not quite ready to return to starring roles. Are you reading scripts?

GP: Yeah, I'm probably gonna work in the fall in another really good, big supporting part, but the problem is that if you do a movie where you're in every scene, you just literally will not see your children and that's just not good enough for me. I'm reading things. I've read some really interesting things, but there has to be a time out for school and there's all these crazy stipulations now, but I'll continue to work and I'll find good stuff I'm sure.

SG: Did you ever imagine you'd have those kinds of stipulations before you had kids?

GP: No, I never even dreamed of it. It's ironic because you spend your whole life trying to get out of school and then you're a slave to it again. At least I'm not the one attending.

Iron Man is in theaters today. For more information, check out the official Iron Man site.