If there’s one thing we can agree about the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it’s that the whole house of cards was a team effort. From actors to below-the-line crew, it took a village to make the MCU coherent (Read our Marvel movies in order guide if you think it doesn’t make sense; it does.), and it’s kind of amazing how well the whole shared universe holds together.
Of course, just because we can acknowledge that teamwork made the dream work for Marvel, that doesn’t mean there weren’t internal rivalries between the actors playing our favorite Marvel characters. Don’t take our word for it, though Robert Downey Jr admitted as much, according to Jeremy Renner.
“We’re all kind of parading around in our costumes,” Renner told Dax Shepard while on the Armchair Expert podcast. “So it looks like it’s Halloween. We’re excited and equally feeling ridiculous. I feel like we all kind of knew each other, somehow, some way. Except we didn’t know this Hemsworth guy because he comes from Australia.”
“He’s the tallest, he’s the most good-looking,” Renner continued. “Downey [was like], ‘We’ve got to break his knee. We’ve got to take him out. This guy’s too good-looking. He’s too tall. He’s too charming. F*ck this guy.”
Downey Jr. was, of course, joking about his hammer-wielding colleague, and the Iron Man cast member would prove he had his co-stars’ backs after the first Avengers movie premiered. According to Screen Geek, the core heroes only earned a relatively paltry $200,000 when they first assembled, despite Avengers being one of the highest-grossing movies of all time.
With several members of the cast, most notably Hemsworth, reconsidering this whole superhero business and not wanting the wheels to come off the MCU, Downey Jr. leaped into action. He went to Marvel Studios and told bosses they needed to put their hands in their suit pockets and pony up more cash if they wanted to see Earth’s mightiest heroes on the big screen again.
As the de facto leader of the cast, and with the Iron Man movies so successful, Disney had little choice but to give in to the group’s demands. This wasn’t the only time Downey Jr. lived up to his superheroic alter ego.
Believe it or not, there was a time when Mark Ruffalo wasn’t sure if he should take the Hulk role, and Downey Jr. had to step in and help Ruffalo make the right decision.
“I got a call from Downey; it must’ve made it to him that I was hemming and hawing, and he just simply said, ‘Ruffalo, let’s go. We got this,’ in true Iron Man fashion,” he told Cinemablend. “And then after that, I was like, ‘I guess I have to do it.”
Now, check out our list of the best superhero movies ever!