While doing media for his upcoming movie Immortals, Mickey Rourke was interviewed by Crave Online and he made mention of the fact that he is very mad at Marvel Studios over how his performance as Ivan Vanko in Iron Man 2 came out.
Here is what he had to say about his character and how Marvels portrayal came out:
Well, I always try to bring that to a character. It’s like when I did Ivan Vanko in Iron Man, I fought… You know, I explained to Justin Theroux, to the writer, and to [Jon] Favreau that I wanted to bring some other layers and colors, not just make this Russian a complete murderous revenging bad guy. And they allowed me to do that. Unfortunately, the [people] at Marvel just wanted a one-dimensional bad guy, so most of the performance ended up the floor.
Well, you know, it is f**king too bad, but it’s their loss. If they want to make mindless comic book movies, then I don’t want to be a part of that. I don’t want to have to care so much and work so hard, and then fight them for intelligent reasoning, and just because they’re calling the shots they… You know, I didn’t work for three months on the accent and all the adjustments and go to Russia just so I could end up on the floor. Because that can make somebody say at the end of the day, oh f**k ‘em, I’m just going to mail it in. But I’m not that kind of guy. I’m never going to mail it in.
He later goes on to talk about his performance in the film:
No, but I’m saying it’s frustrating when that happens, when you care so much and you try so hard. At the end of the day you’ve got some nerd with a pocketful of money calling the shots. You know, Favreau didn’t call the shots. I wish he would have. And Theroux, we worked together to bring layers to that character, so, you know, I fight for that any time I’m playing like a bad guy.
Mickey Rourke is a talented actor. He was phenominal in The Wrestler. It’s a shame Vanko was so one dimensional, but it is good to know that Rourke really cared about the role and made effort to embrace it and do the best he could with it.
