Jeff Bridges opens up about his experience working on Iron Man and why it drove him crazy. After years of collaborating with other companies, Marvel Studios finally decided to produce their own films, starting with the Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr. movie in 2008. Despite the massive risks and releasing around the same time as Christopher Nolan's highly anticipated The Dark Knight, Iron Man became the sleeper hit of the year and, most importantly, laid a strong foundation for what would become today's most popular franchise.

Since Iron Man, there have been a lot of discussions about how it was magic in a bottle for Marvel Studios. Hiring Favreau and Downey were massive risks unto themselves. Despite this, and the fact that the MCU was still an unknown entity, the project attracted A-list stars to play the film's supporting cast. Gwyneth Paltrow played Pepper Potts, Tony Stark's personal assistant and eventual love interest. Then, Bridges signed on to play the villain, Obadiah Stane. Unlike Paltrow, however, who continuously played the part throughout the Infinity Saga, Iron Man was Bridges' only MCU outing, and apparently, the experience wasn't all that good at first.

Related: Thor's MCU Ending Can Do The 1 Thing Iron Man's Endgame Death Failed At

Bridges recently sat down with Vanity Fair to break down his most iconic roles. When it comes to Iron Man, the actor has nothing but great things to say about Favreau and Downey. He then proceeds to talk about the tumultuous production, including the many script re-writes. The uncertainty, Bridges admits, drove him crazy. Ultimately, however, he changed his mindset and decided to just go with the flow, and from there, he started to really enjoy the process. Read the actor's whole story below:

Wow, Jon Favreau man, what a director, what a great filmmaker. It was Marvel's first adventure into making movies. It was so lucky to have Jon on there and Downey, because both of them are so, they're 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.' And then came the first day of shooting, and Marvel kind of threw out our script that we had been working on, said, 'No, that's no good. It's gotta be this and that.' And so there was a lot of confusion about what our script was, what we were gonna say, you know? And we'd spend hours in one of our trailers going over lines, and saying 'Oh you play my part or I'll play your part,' exploring how we gonna do it. Jon would say, 'Oh, I know a writer. Let me see he may have some ideas...' Meanwhile, the crew is in the sound stage, tapping their feet saying 'When are we gonna get this thing going?' And it drove me absolutely crazy until I made a slight adjustment in my brain and that adjustment was 'Jeff, just relax. You're making a $200 million student film. Just relax and have fun.' 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. And I, for my money, that's the best Marvel movie. I know I'm biased, of course. But man, I thought it was a wonderful experience.

Obadiah Stane stands over a hurt Tony Stark

It was no secret that making Iron Man was truly chaotic. In fact, Kevin Feige even admits that casting Downey as Iron Man remains Marvel's biggest risk thus far. Bridges' story is by no means exaggerated, as there were even days that the cast and crew improvised scenes and changed the overall direction of the narrative. This was while Marvel Studios was under immense pressure to succeed, or else all the rights to their remaining characters would be auctioned off. Understandably, it was frustrating for an industry veteran like Bridges not to know how the film was shaping up. That's the reason why he keeps on complimenting Favreau and Downey's improvisation skills, as they were pivotal in making Iron Man the superhero classic that it has become. The fact that it had a chaotic production made its success more impressive.

Despite the difficulty of getting used to working on a looser production, Bridges is clearly very proud of the work that they did with Iron Man, even hailing it as the best MCU film in his opinion. While there may be some who would debate him about this as, Avengers: Infinity War was previously awarded the accolade, there's no denying that the project is one of the best Marvel Studios films thus far. After more than a decade, it has aged quite nicely.

More: The Russos Are Wrong, Iron Man Didn’t Deserve To Die (But Loki Did)

Source: Vanity Fair

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