Jeff Bridges says filming Iron Man felt like making a ‘$200 million student film’

Actor recalled studio throwing out workshopped script he had made with Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr on first day

Jeff Bridges has said that shooting Iron Man felt like making a “$200 million student film”

The actor played villain Obadiah Stane in the 2008 film, which was the first movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

In a new interview looking back on his career with Vanity Fair, the actor recalled his frustration after he, director Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr workshopped the script together, only for it to be thrown out by studio execs.

“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,’” he said.

“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 got to be this and that… And so there was a lot of confusion about what our script was, what we were gonna say.”

Bridges continued: “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.’

“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.”

Bridges went on to say that Iron Man was the “best Marvel movie”.