Downey: The funny thing is, when I was researching I asked for every single piece of information they had on Iron Man. They were like, "No, no. We'll send you over a package." I was like, "May I have every single piece you have on Iron Man?" So when the merchandise started coming out I said, "May I have every single thing that is part of the merchandising?" They said, "Robert, that would be like a truck." I was like, "May I have ..." And they said, "Oh, no problem." But anyway, there's all the cool stuff and the Nerf thing and the this and sippy cups and Slurpees and the whole deal, but there's this little book, which probably cost 5 cents to make. It's a little flipbook, and at the end of the flipbook it says, "Iron Man defeated the evil Obadiah Stane. He would never hurt anybody again." And I look on the front and it says "For ages 4+," you know? It's pretty wild and cool to think that I could be participating in this tradition of being kind of twice removed, but pretty directly involved in something that can affect that wide an audience.Some people think that casting you was a ballsy move. Did you think that?

Downey: Yeah.Were you wondering, "Why did they come to me with this?"

Downey: No, they didn't come to me with it. I went to Jon. I was like, "I'm the guy for this." He's like, "I know, but it ain't going to happen." I was like, "I think it is." He's like, "I can tell you it's not." I was thinking about Plainview in There Will Be Blood; "It comes to the showdown!" Well, then give me the showdown, because that's what I do. And I've been doing it for so long. I'm not some kid, or some other guy who's been around, or some three-hit wonder. Let's see who throws the ball faster. I'm warmed up, dude; let's do it.When did it come together for you?

Downey: The screen test. I think I got the part pretty much five seconds after the screen test started. But that's life, you know? I show up. "Isn't it beneath you, humiliating?" I was like, "No." I guess I could go that way, but I'm the guy on my side here. I'm not going to say, "Give me a shot, give me a shot!" and then say, "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 they believe for the moment, are beneath them to do. Or you start taking yourself quite seriously and think that you have to be really, really picky, because you are really, really special. Iron Man actually kills people, something we don't normally see happen in superhero movies. Was that discussed? Were there concerns that it'd be too hard-edged?

Downey: I thought we needed to go further. You've built something that kills. This is the whole point of this machine. So we could go further and say the whole point of the movie is this really gung-ho, right-wing, crazy thing. I don't believe in the way America's doing it. They're corrupt. ... So you really have to parlay that back into what is the mythology of the story. And, more importantly than the mythology, because any Joseph Campbell freak can come in and break it all down, I'm talking about what makes this applicable to the 21st century. And I'll speak for myself, Gen-X types, how can our kids relate to that? How can our parents understand that? And how can you make it fun for the whole family?Gwyneth Paltrow, some people are surprised that you're in this movie ...

Paltrow: I don't know why people are so surprised. You don't generally make movies like this ...

Paltrow: Well, but I just hadn't. That doesn't mean I wouldn't. The reason I wanted to do it was because the group of people was so brilliant. It's like, how do you not do that movie? I hadn't worked in, really, since ... I was pregnant with [daughter] Apple when I did Proof, and that was a long time ago, and it 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 did a few little things, but not a big part or anything. I kind of wanted to go back to work. I started to feel the thing of "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 in about a year, when my son is a year [old], if there's something that seemed like it'd be fun and inspiring and not too demanding—because going back to work, I was very nervous about it—I'll do it. And then Jon called, and he explained what the movie was, what it was going to be kind of at face value, and what the sort of other metaphors in the movie were. He explained my character, and he was like, "She's going to be great. You're going to have fun. It's going to be good scenes." So I said, "OK, I'll do it." And I'm so happy that I said that, because I just had such a good time. Those guys are brilliant. I grew up always wanting to work with Robert, and Jeff Bridges is, like, The Big Lebowski. I mean, he's a god. He's an acting god.One of the movie's best scenes is the one in which Pepper reaches into Tony's chest and literally reconnects his heart. Can you take us through shooting that and what Jon, you and Robert wanted out of it?

Paltrow: How did we approach that one that day? I'm just trying to think. Robert always never wanted to shoot the script and was constantly ripping it in half and throwing it against the wall. So usually we started a scene [saying], "Well, these are things that have to happen in the scene. These are the points that we have to hit. And this is kind of the mini-arc of it." So we'd kind of start there and then talk and get somewhere. But that was a really fun scene to shoot. There's the metaphor of the changing of his heart and all of that stuff. It was fun to shoot. It was a good day. I haven't seen [the film], but I hope it's OK.How concerned were you about committing to the possibility of Iron Man 2 and 3 in the event this first film is successful enough to warrant sequels?

Paltrow: 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. I'd be so happy to keep going and keep working with those guys.

Terrence Howard, there's a great in-joke where you see an Iron Man suit and react to it. That's a teaser for a possible evolution into War Machine ...

Howard: Robin might get to ride in the Batmobile one day. No, I'm pretty sure we're gonna go there. The response to even that one little statement, the roar in the audience ... I didn't know that War Machine was so beloved or anticipated until sitting in an audience and hearing that.Was that part of why you took this role, what could result, since there's not a ton of you in this film?

Howard: Oh, of course. There was a lot more of me before. In the film that we shot there was a whole lot of me, and then I got a call from Jon, I guess mid-February, late January. He was like, "How you doing?" I was like, "Cool." He said, "Yeah, so, we're working on the film." I was like, "Yeah, how's it coming out?" He said, "It's great. It's great. It's great. But we had to make some cuts. Everybody took a hit, but Rhodey took a big hit. Rhodey took a real big hit." I was like, "How big of a hit? If I was 6 feet tall at the beginning, how tall am I now?" He said, "You're about an action-figure size. You'll fit right on the shelf." He was like, the main point of this first one was to establish [Stark]. They had to go through everything Tony had to go through in order to become Iron Man. So half of the movie is literally that, then establishing Pepper's relationship, establishing Obadiah. He said, "What we needed you to do is be a seed, plant a seed. We're so limited with what we can do with you because of the Department of Defense, and their backing was all based upon them being able to control James Rhodes and the image of the United States Air Force in there." It would have compromised [the film]. It would have cost them an extra $40 million because they would have had to pay for the use of all the equipment that we had, that we got basically for free from the Department of Defense. So the next one, we're not using the Department of Defense, I've been told. We appreciated the help, but they want to be a little more free to have a greater latitude. But they said the seed was planted, and now we'll see how it germinates during these next couple of weeks and months, and then if it can produce some really great shoots we'll shoot a great movie next year.Jeff Bridges, in playing Stane, did you go by what was on paper or were you part of the improv process?

Bridges: This is interesting, "what's on the paper," because it was rarely on the paper. I always thought that these big multimillion-dollar movies, that the special effects are so expensive that they would want to have all the dialogue and be very prepared that way, so that everything [he snaps his fingers] would go quicker. But I found out that that's not the case with these movies. Often the dialogue is kind of left as a last-minute thing, you know? That was tough, because you base your character on what is said about you and what you say, and if that's not solid, then who are you, what are you? So I showed [my ideas] to Jon, so that we were all on the same page. Occasionally that would have to change as we started to discover each day who people were and that sort of thing. So often we would show up for work not knowing what we were going to say. We'd meet in Jon's trailer for a couple of hours and throw ideas around and improvise and put it on one of these little tape recorders. And that's what we said. Jon is to blame, I think, for the success of the movie. As far as I'm concerned, I think it came out wonderfully. I was concerned. It took me a while to kind of get with the program and not spend all that energy bitching about the way it was, because that's not how I like to work. But that's kind of the assignment often; you're dealt a hand of the different people you're working with, and everything is very different. They were very lucky to have Jon and Robert, too, who's also a great improviser. As Stane, you're bald. Was there much debate about that?

Bridges: No, I saw the comic books and saw the guy was bald and thought, "Oh, this is a chance for me to shave my head." It's something I'd always wanted to do. I talked to Jon about it, and he said I didn't have to do it, but if I wanted to do it I could. I said, "Oh great. Let's try it. Let's go."Several of your co-stars noted that they lost scenes during the editing process. Were there any Stane scenes you particularly liked that were trimmed or deleted?

Bridges: Uh ... I don't know. The editing process is so much fun. I've done a little bit of that, [working] in the editing room. It's so great. You can really paint. Sometimes when you make a change you think it's going to shorten it. You cut something out and look at it and the movie seems longer. Sometimes you put more in and the movie seems shorter. It's all about how the audience is engaged. And I've got to say, with this end product they've certainly cut some scenes of mine out, that I can feel my ego or something saying, "Gee, I would like to have seen people have me say those lines and see that," but all in all I think they did a good job in the editing and what they cut out. Jon Favreau, you cast Robert Downey as Tony Stark/Iron Man. Downey has had his share of ups and downs. What did that lend to his portrayal of the character?

Favreau: Downey had a lot in common with Tony Stark. Stark was a guy who lived in the public eye and had succeeded and failed in a very public way, and Robert was able to just really own the idea of being this very intelligent, very public figure who's known by everybody whenever he walks into a room. Robert has lived that. He doesn't push it in the movie. You just know that he gets it. When he walks up a red carpet in the movie or is helped into a limo or walks through a casino floor, you know that this is a guy who has lived with this kind of fame and exposure, and I think that adds dimension to an otherwise two-dimensional genre, when you have a guy who can bring that type of depth and experience to a role.Stan Lee's cameo in Iron Man is pretty amusing. How did you come up with the idea?

Favreau: Stan Lee has been in so many movies that it really takes a lot of ingenuity to come up with a new way to present him. He's a much better comic-book creator than he is an actor, so it's very hard to not be taken out of the movie too far by his cameo, because he's such a presence. But I think we found a way to do it. And he was great. Stan's the most gracious, fun guy. When he was standing there with the three beautiful women on his arm, I said, "Who's your favorite director?" And he said, "You are, Jon."How interested would you be in returning for Iron Man sequels, and what direction might you steer the franchise in post-origin story?

Favreau: I'd love to keep directing these. Really, the sky is the limit. I think you've got to outdo yourself. I gotta think you've got to go bigger, you've got to go better. You don't have the simple sense of discovery of the first one in the sequels, but I'm told the second chapter of these franchises is always the most fun, because you can just play in the sandbox and bring more toys in. So I think the struggle is going to be what the next character progression is, so it's not just a serialized version of this character that doesn't change from beginning to end. I think what needs to be explored next, if we follow what's in the books, is how the weight of being a public superhero is going to affect Tony Stark's personality and start to expand on the hairline fractures in his personality and his spirit. By the way, once you have the audience, you have a lot of freedom to go further tonally. But when you launch a franchise, if you notice, they always play it much closer to the vest with these superhero films until the parents and the audiences make up their minds that they like them.