20 Things You Didn’t Know About Iron Man 2
16. Mickey Rourke Was Unhappy That Much Of His Role Was Cut
Fans were thrilled when Mickey Rourke was cast as Whiplash, given the actor's career resurgence following the release of The Wrestler, as well as the clearly insane amount of effort the actor went to for the part.
In addition to paying for Vanko's pet cockatoo and gold teeth on his own dime, Rourke visited a Russian prison to get into character, and even researched authentic Russian tattoos.
Post-release, Rourke complained that a lot of his hard work was ultimately for nothing as executive meddling let to many of his scenes being cut.
He said, "Unfortunately, the [people] at Marvel just wanted a one-dimensional bad guy, so most of the performance ended up on the floor."
He added, "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." Ouch.