Jeff Bridgesis looking back on being the very first Marvel Cinematic Universe villain.
The actor, 72, said he considers 2008’sIron Manthe best of the bunch. His role as Obadiah Stane, aka Iron Monger, served as the foil to Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man in the original film that kicked off the MCU.
The film was “Marvel’s first adventure into making movies,” Bridgessaid in a recentVanity Fairvideo. He also called the process “wonderful” in a career retrospective where he broke down his most iconic roles.
“It was so lucky to have Jon on there and Downey, because both of them are terrific improvisers, and we spent a couple of weeks working on the script and rehearsing together, because we didn’t like the original script and we thought, ‘Oh yeah, we fixed this, fixed that,’ " Bridges revealed.
Jeff Bridges.Tibrina Hobson/Getty Images
Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE’s free weekly newsletterto get the biggest news of the week delivered to your inbox every Friday.
But after their exploration, Marvel “kind of threw out” the script they’d been working on, and the stars weren’t sure where to go from there. “Meanwhile the crew is in the sound stage, tapping their feet,” Bridges said.
“It drove me absolutely crazy until I made a slight adjustment in my brain that was: ‘Jeff, just relax. You’re making a $200 million student film. Just relax and have fun,’ " Bridges recalled. “And that kind of did the trick because here I get to play with these two incredible artists and just jam, and that’s what we ended up doing.”
He cited his own bias but added, “For my money, that’s still the best Marvel movie.”
The interview features Bridges breaking down other iconic roles like The Dude inThe Big Lebowskiand several of his Oscar-nominated parts that span his entire career.
source: people.com
