I’ve been thriving off Marvel nostalgia thanks to repeated trips back to the age of Iron Man. First with VisionQuest, and now with some hilarious trivia. I’m always up for some fun BTS stories about the shared universe, but even I couldn’t have predicted how the MCU connects to spy guinea pigs. Yes, you read that correctly. So imagine my reaction when I heard the wild (guinea pig-related) story behind Jon Favreau casting one star for Iron Man 2.
Turns out, we have a family-friendly spy movie to thank for Sam Rockwell’s role as Justin Hammer. For those of you who don’t remember (or hasn’t strayed from the MCU re-watch list for Doomsday), back in 2010 Tony Stark dealt with two villains: Ivan Vanko (played by Mickey Rourke) and Hammer who was Vanko’s benefactor in his crusade against Iron Man. While the second movie doesn’t get as much love, it’s clear that the Galaxy Quest actor enjoyed playing the cheeky bad guy, and even has a connection to Justin Theroux who penned the script. He dished to Esquire on the unique way he landed the part while sharing BTS stories behind some of his popular roles:
Justin and I were friends, and I was dating Leslie Bibb and she had done the first Iron Man. And I went over to Theroux’s apartment just to get coffee, and he’s packing a bag. And I’m like, ‘Where are you going?’ He’s [like,] ‘I’m going to LA. I’m going to write Iron Man 2.’ I’m like, ‘Get the fuck out of here. I want to be in that. What’s the part?’ said, ‘I want to be the bad guy. Let me be the bad guy.’ And he goes, ‘Yeah, yeah, OK, whatever.’
While he’s not involved in any upcoming Marvel projects, I’m glad he got to live out his dream. Not only did he get a part in the movie, he also got to play a bad guy. Justin Hammer has everything you love about Bond villains (plus Sam Rockwell’s cheekiness), and was the perfect charismatic foil to play off of Robert Downey Jr. Though what exactly do guinea pigs have to do with him landing the role? Well, Rockwell explains:
And then, like, six months later, a few months later, I’m doing G-Force, and Jon Favreau and I are in a room playing guinea pigs, and we’re like wrestling around with each other in the sound studio, and he says, ‘Hey, there’s this thing Theroux’s writing.’ I said, ‘Oh, is it Iron Man?’ So he said, ‘I got the Marvel guy coming. We’re going to take the villain. We’re going to split it in two and we’re going to make one the fast talking guy and then sort of alpha. So they got me and Mickey to sort of do both do the villain sort of as two parts.
I shouldn’t be surprised by this story and yet I didn’t expect the two to connect while pretending to be guinea pigs. Am I the only one who can’t stop picturing Happy and Hammer running around pretending to be adorable rodents? Though Favreau has a gift when it comes to picking actors, as he ignored the pushback against RDJ and chose to back him as Iron Man anyway. At the time, he explained that he “just saw it” regarding RDJ in what would be his most famous role. Clearly something about Rockwell’s performance as Darwin (the no-nonsense leader of G-Force) that was perfect to play Hammer.
The actor gave a shout out to a memorable moment. Before you guess, it’s not when he’s fine-dining while interviewing Vanko. Turns out, when Hammer gave the gun demonstration, the actor had to use an earwig as they changed up the props right before filming. What apparently stood out most in the interview was Rockwell’s willingness to return to the MCU if asked. He’s just waiting to get the call. Although Hammer’s return would be the least surprising thing after VisionQuest Episode 6 blasted us back to 2008 with Faran Tahir reprising his Iron Man 1 character. Somehow I missed that casting news prior to watching.
At this point, Justin Hammer could easily come out of the wood works, and I wouldn’t be shocked to learn that he escaped from prison. This would be relatively simple to achieve, especially since our characters keep making trips to the island of Madripoor and it’d be believable that he’d hide out there. Plus, Tony’s rival would easily fit in with the lawless chaos.
So why not include a Benefactor that can face off against the Power Broker?
