--- title: 10 Questions for Jon Favreau | TIME description: The Iron Man 2 director, Jon Favreau, answers questions from TIME readers canonical: https://time.com/video/8pjEYvNy/ og:title: 10 Questions for Jon Favreau og:description: The Iron Man 2 director, Jon Favreau, answers questions from TIME readers og:url: https://time.com/video/8pjEYvNy/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/8pjEYvNy/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 10 Questions for Jon Favreau twitter:description: The Iron Man 2 director, Jon Favreau, answers questions from TIME readers twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/8pjEYvNy/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # 10 Questions for Jon Favreau > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: 10 Questions for Jon Favreau [Watch (HLS stream): 10 Questions for Jon Favreau](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/8pjEYvNy.m3u8) (6:06)  _Published 2010-05-06. The Iron Man 2 director, Jon Favreau, answers questions from TIME readers_ --- Jul 27, 2023 2:15 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [10 Questions With Wonder Woman Director Patty Jenkins](/video/bGDAH1S0/) ### 10 Questions With Wonder Woman Director Patty Jenkins [Jon Favreau to Direct a New Adaptation of 'The Lion King'](/video/YoXe2STJ/) ### Jon Favreau to Direct a New Adaptation of 'The Lion King' [10 Questions for Jon Hamm](/video/9vqR4CZS/) ### 10 Questions for Jon Hamm --- ## Transcript >> Hi, this is Brian Alexander from time. com and we are here with John Favreau, the director and star of Iron Man 2 and we're doing readers' questions. Michael Levy from Chesapeake, Virginia, asked, " Robert Downey, Jr ., has an eccentric way about him and many of his roles. Does that bleed through in real life ?" >> Yeah, he's an eccentric guy. I think that's a good word for him. He's talented, eccentric. He definitely thinks- he's more of a creative thinker than an organized thinker, and so a lot of our balance that we strike is a lot of ideas coming and then me trying to figure out how to narrow them down or build upon them sometimes. Sometimes an idea that- sometimes an idea is just inspiring and it works its way into the film. Sometimes an idea is something that inspires other people to have other ideas. So he definitely is the- He's definitely the stir in the cocktail glass. >> Oh, wow. Very, very impressive individual. She's fluent in French, Italian, Russian, Latin. Who speaks Latin? >> No one speaks Latin. It's a dead language. >> No one speaks Latin? >> You can read Latin, or you can write Latin, but you can't speak Latin- >> Did you model in Tokyo 'cause she modeled in Tokyo. >> Elena Musanilva of Moscow, Russia, asked, " Lately in American movies and TV shows, there had been a lot of Russian villains ." >> Yes. -" Why are you picking on us ?" >> Why am I picking on them? >> You particularly. >> Quite the contrary. I mean back in the old days in the Iron Man comic books, all the bad guys were Russian, were Soviet because it was the Cold War. Now, we've- you know, we try to maintain the nationality of the bad guy from the comic of Whiplash where in the case Ivan Vanko, but we didn't make him like a Soviet, you know, super warrior. He's an individual. He's a criminal off from the other side of the world, but he's not part of the- He doesn't represent the Russian system. It was just an interesting- an interesting look and affectation to give Mickey Rourke that he definitely gravitated towards. >> You come from a family of thieves and butchers, but now, like all guilty men, you try to rewrite your own history and you forget all the lives the Stark family has destroyed.- Speaking of thieves, where did you get this design? >> My father, Anton Vanko. >> Never heard of him. >> Because of Avatar, 3D is all the rage. >> Yes. >> Would you consider using that technology in your future projects? >> Yes. I love 3D. I think when it's applied properly, it's a tremendous resource. It allows you to tell a story in a way that- at least when I watch it as a movie- goer, it affects me in a different way. When it's done properly, it's more dream- like, more subjective. The industry as much money as they seem to be taking and is actually hurting a great deal from piracy and this allows the theatrical window to be more robust and so people are converting films that they have shot in 2D and never having intended to present it in 3D. And I think that's gonna water down the medium because people are not gonna necessarily get the quality that they've come to expect from a film shot in stereo like Avatar from something that's converted with new maybe unproven technology. >> Frank Merta from Memphis, Tennessee says, " Among all the heroes of the Marvel Universe, why Iron Man ?" That was- >> For me, Iron Man was- well, something it was one of the titles that Marvel, the studio had the rights to. It's the biggest hero. All their big boys had been already sold off to other studios like Spiderman and X- Men and Daredevil. So Iron Man was a second- tier hero but part of the original pantheon, you know, the old- he's been around for 40 years. >> Go get 'em, boss. >> You complete me. >> I liked him because he was a hero that was a peer to me so I could tell a story that I could relate to. It wasn't about a kid in high school. I also liked that he was a normal person that built the suit as opposed to somebody who has had some magical thing happen to him that created his heroic powers. So you could set it in a very real world and I think it played into my strengths and sensibility. And then, also I felt that CGI could handle an iron suit more than an organic figure, and it was a story that you couldn't tell before CG because of all the things he does- the flying and the weapons and all those things. So it seemed like a fresh story that was well- suited for this moment in time. >> Emily Hanson from Sands Point, New York, asked, " How does your experience as a director influence your acting and vice versa ?" >> I'd say I learn more as a director from being an actor than vice versa. I've had the good fortune of being able to apprentice- I'm sort of a de factor apprentice on these movies that I'm an actor on 'cause I get to follow the- watch the director, follow him around, ask him questions, ask all the department heads questions on the set, and that was my learning. That was my film school. I got to watch directors direct and then I try to emulate the ones that I respect. Most directors don't have that experience. You come out of film school or you write a script or you can get your pool money together and you're on a set for the first time. You're on a set, you're the boss. That's a weird way to learn how to do something. And so being on other people's sets and watching the flow of work and watching how they handle people gave me a tremendous leg up on other people who- other first time directors who had never had that experience. >> We've wrapped up. Thank you so much- >> Great, okay. >> for taking time out your business schedule and- >> Thank you. >> best of luck with Iron Man 2. >> Good, good. Thank you. 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