I remember reading that Heath Ledger prepared for his turn as the Joker by checking into a hotel room and keeping isolated for about month while he worked out the character’s voices and mannerisms, and even kept a diary written in his perspective. That seemed like the summit of an actor “going method” for a supervillain role, but I might have to reevaluate that conclusion after seeing these EPKs for IRON MAN 2. Scarlett Johannson went through months of hard core martial arts to convincingly play the Black Widow. Prepare to raise your eyebrows because Lucha Libre was actually amongst the styles she trained in. That’s right, acrobatic Mexican pro-wrestling (laying the seeds for her inevitably tag-team match with El Santo and Blue Demon). Jon Favreau definitely deserves applause for thinking outside the box.
Actually, it isn’t Scarlet’s training that really out-does Ledger’s method so much Mickey Rourke’s. In addition to brushing up on his knunchuks to be properly showy with the bullwhip, he actually checked into a Russian prison to get into the mindset of Whiplash. Now, THAT is committing to a role. Hear it from the actors, themselves, below…
== TEASER ==
Now that the prep’s been described to you, you might as well see what all of it amounted to, am I right? We’ve also got a clip from the movie, here, showing Tony questioning Whiplash in a Moroccan prison. It’s interesting to see the range of tones represented between just these two clips. Honestly, I was a little lukewarm about seeing this movie, but these previews might have just swayed me into the avenue of anticipation. See for yourself...
-- Tom Pinchuk is the writer of UNIMAGINABLE for Arcana Comics and HYBRID BASTARDS! for Archaia. Pre-order the HYBRID BASTARDS! hardcover now on Amazon.com.
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