The Superhero Cast of The Avengers: Age of Ultron
By: Erin
The epic story continues with Marvel’s the ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron.’ The Superhero Dream Team is back with a superhero cast to protect the world from the greatest threat man has known yet! Before all the adventures start-up again this Friday, May 1st, I thought I would share some fun facts that were shared at the brief, but informative press junket that I attended as a guest of Disney.
The superhero cast and talent that were present:
· Robert Downey Jr (“Iron Man”)
· Scarlett Johansson (“Black Widow”)
· Chris Evans (“Captain America”)
· Chris Hemsworth (“Thor”)
· Mark Ruffalo (“The Hulk”)
· Jeremy Renner (“Hawkeye”)
· Cobie Smulders (“Maria Hill”)
· Aaron Taylor Johnson (“Quicksilver”)
· Elizabeth Olsen (“Scarlett Witch”)
· James Spader (“Ultron”)
· Paul Bettany (“Vision”)
· Joss Whedon (Director)
· Kevin Feige (Producer)
With so much talent in one room at once, it was hard to take in everything happening, and where to focus your attention at. Questions being asked, laughter, conversation, the talent frequently and wittingly jumping in on each others’ questions. It was then cut pretty short to show us a sneak peek of the Ant Man trailer at the end. Here are some highlights from our afternoon with the superheros from the Avengers: Age of Ultron. 😉
One of the first questions was for Joss Whedon, the director, about the challenges with the film.
What were the biggest challenges that you faced putting together the story and then shooting the film? What were the things that surprised you on your journey?
JOSS WHEDON: There’s like 47 of these people. I really didn’t think that through, and I regret very much doing this at all. You know, it’s just making sure that everybody’s, got their moment, that everybody’s got their through-line, that it’s connected to the movie. I have all these people. I love all these people. They’re extraordinary. But making sure that they’re not just all being served, but all within the same narrative structure, that they’re in the same movie, that it’s all connected to the main theme. At some point during the editing process, I could not have told you who they were, who I was, what movie I was making, I got so lost in it. But I think it all came together, it’s just about making these guys look good, which takes a long time.
So many questions for Joss, on how do you even begin to start to create the sequel to one of the greatest, largest, most successful movies of all time?
JOSS WHEDON: With the smallest thing I can think of. The thing that drew me back to the movie was: what little moments are there between these characters that I haven’t gotten to do yet? What conversations have they not had? How can I, you know, what haven’t I shown? It’s never sort of the big picture stuff, it’s never “and then we can have an army of robots” – although that’s cool too – it’s always just: where do they live, or how can I get inside their hearts, what’s funny about them? Those are the moments – just, I write just reams and reams of paper just thinking about, you know, the tiniest part, that’s really the heart of the thing.
A lot of attention was going to Joss, so *note* make sure to ask Robert Downey Jr the first question if ever at a press conference.
We get to see a lot of sort of fatherly side of Tony Stark this time, your relationship with Tony and Woo Chon, and you also sort of take care of Hulk, Bruce Banner, like a father. So were you having that kind of thing in mind when you’re playing this role this time?
ROBERT DOWNEY JR.: I said: I think this is great. Kevin said, “You never say that. You can’t mean that.” I said, “Yeah, I think it’s great. Let’s go shoot it.” I thought it was a Swiss watch to begin with and Joss really created some great new situations for Tony to be in, so rather than dig in my heels and try to rewrite every scene, to make them even better, if possible, I showed up and it turned out great.