Interview: Talking Iron Man With Terrence Howard

By Kellvin Chavez on April 30, 2008

Currently Terrence Howard is taking a break from the Broadway show Cat on a Hot Tin Roof to promote his latest film, IRON MAN in which Howard plays the role of Jim Rhodes opposite Robert Downey Jr. playing Tony Stark.

Over the weekend I had a chance to sit down with Howard to talk about the film and about whether or not we will see more of him as War Machine in a sequel for Iron Man and more.

You're listed online as having a lot of projects like 'The Crusaders', 'Fighting' –

Howard: Yeah. We did 'Fighting'. That got done. 'Crusaders' got kind of sidetracked because this is Thurgood Marshall's story and I won't do it as a TV show. It should be done as a film.

So it's a script issue?

Howard: The script is right. They wanted to do it on HBO or something, and I love HBO, but Thurgood Marshall deserves a worldwide audience.

Is 'Fighting' a mixed martial arts thing?

Howard: It's not that. It's actual fighting, but it's like taking 'Midnight Cowboy', taking that script or screenplay and instead of having Ratso Rizzo trying to sell him as a prostitute he's trying to set him up with fights in boxing. It's actual street fights. I think they thought we were going to make 'The Fast and the Furious', but we made something closer to 'Fight Club' and something a little more like 'Midnight Cowboy'. It's extremely engaging and emotional because Dito [Montiel] don't play. He don't do what everyone else wants him to.

And then what's 'Factor X'?

Howard: That's something that we're still working out, working on the script for that and trying to get it right.

How do you decide to do something like this when it's so big and a lot of it is going to be out of your control and it'll be done in post somewhere?

Howard: Well, Jon Favreau called me early on and said that I took the biggest hit in the cutting room. He wanted me to understand that because they needed to establish me for the 'War Machine' aspects and the relationship with Tony and the friendship. They needed that but they also needed time to give to Obadiah and time to Pepper and time to the development of the suit. So he said, 'You took a big hit.' I said, 'You turned me into Robin?' He said, 'No. I turned you into Robin's little brother.'

But there's an indication that you might do more in the sequel.

Howard: Yeah, and according to the comic book we're going to stick to that, stay true to that it seems. It seems like they're really gearing up for 'War Machine' as the second part which I am too and they told me that at the very beginning. I was so limited as to what I could do as a result of the department of defense funding us or supporting us in so many ways. They gave us like $40 to $50 million in aid, so to speak, in the use of their planes and their facilities and all of their stuff. It was with one stipulation, that they could control my character and so my character became very sterile for the purposes of the film.

Was there an actual officer there saying what you could and couldn't say?

Howard: The whole time.

How did that go?

Howard: They would come up and say, 'No. He can't do that.'

They would say that to you personally?

Howard: He would talk to Jon, but he was initially talking to me. 'We don't do that in the military.' All day long.

Did you soften him up a little once you got to know him?

Howard: No, you couldn't. There was no softening him up, but they too me to Edwards Air Force Base and I stayed there for about a month and a half and went up in a T-38, an F-15. I got to climb into an F-22 Raptor. I went and took a flight in the B-1. I did a whole lot with them. I trained with them. I did a lot of stuff with them to get me into that mentality and hopefully in the next one I'll be able to abandon that whole 'we' mentality as you become a little more rogue in nature.

Any idea how you would play 'War Machine' when that happens, how the hero will be different than in this 'Iron Man'?

Howard: Well, the interesting thing is that War Machine isn't built until after Rhodes has put on the Iron Man suit and has had his neuro-net corroded, so to speak. So I think that War Machine is a bit more schizophrenic than Rhodes is. It's a new glitch to Rhodes. So I don't know yet.

A separate personality on those then?

Howard: It becomes a whole different nature the way that I'm seeing it now. Once you've been affected by something you can't go back. You no longer have the same sensibilities. Something has to happen to make him break rank because that's ultimately what he's going to do even though he'll be working with SHIELD. He'll still be breaking rank from everything that he's been trained to do.

Did you sign a multiple film contract?

Howard: Yeah.

There was speculation that Samuel L. Jackson shot a scene for SHIELD. Is that true?

Howard: I heard the same thing. I heard that he had shot and there was going to be a cameo. I didn't see it in the movie. I'm waiting. Maybe they didn't finish up his deal for whatever other thing they were about to do.

How was it working with Robert Downey Jr.?

Howard: Robert is probably one of the most gifted actors that I've ever worked with before. I came up to him unsolicited on one given day and I told him, I said, 'I am your second lead and any place you go I will follow you. I will cosign any check that you write and I will copilot any plane that you fly.' He showed me what a true lead is supposed to do. He would take the script and go, 'This is good. We can shoot this and be out of here by lunch or we can make a real movie.'

How brave is it of him to be in 'Tropic Thunder' which is coming out?

Howard: [laughs] As the black guy. He said he played me. He said that he literally put a picture of me. He said, 'I'm going to become Terrence.'

What about the controversy there? If it's the Wayyans Brothers playing it in 'White Chicks' –

Howard: It's okay.

But he's already having to answer for the character and the movie isn't even out.

Howard: I think it's perfect. I think it's absolutely beautiful. It might open up a way for me to play a white guy one day. I'm using it as precedent.

Was it hard watching him get a lot of freedom with the script while you were more suppressed in what you could do?

Howard: No, it was actually appropriate. Rhodes is confined by these years of dogma being poured into him and indoctrination and Tony has always been completely free. So the more free that Robert became and the more liberties that he took with throwing the script around, saying, 'This is bullshit. Lets go rewrite it.' Then coming in and saying, 'I think we should do this scene –' the whole press conference after the war thing, they were supposed to be doing that standing up. They had lit it to be shot standing with all those extras and Robert came in for the blocking and he said, 'I believe that I want to sit down.' Jon was like, 'Okay. You can sit down if you like.' Robert said, 'I think that everyone needs to sit down. I think that we all need to become children here again.' It's like, 'Well, we've been lighting for an hour and a half, Robert.' 'I just feel like we need to be sitting down. I'm going to go to the trailer and think about it for a moment.' Jon looked over at the producers and they looked over at all of us and me and Gwyneth [Paltrow] looked at each other, and they re-lit it. An hour later Tony came in there and when he sat down at the edge of that podium it became real. It was his instincts that made an average scene that probably wouldn't have lasted for more than thirty seconds, it became something that had an impact.

It's the character too.

Howard: Yes, and that's Robert. He walks in completely transparent because he no longer feels that you think more of him than what he is. All of his skeletons are out of the closet. All of the rest of us spending the rest of the time hiding them and masking our demons and our darker sides – he's completely free because everybody knows the worst of his deeds.

Are you still interested in doing something on 'Luke Cage'?

Howard: No. I mean, I think John Singleton is trying to –

He's (John Singleton) out.

Howard: Oh. Well, then maybe [laughs].

Iron Man Opens on May 2nd 2008.

Source: Latino Review

Tags: Iron Man, Text Interview

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