8 Iconic Movie Characters That Were Mostly Improvised

5. Tony Stark - Iron Man

To hear Jeff Bridges tell it, there was no script for the original Iron Man. Bridges, who played lead villain Obadiah Stane, insists that the production of the popular superhero flick was like "making a $200 million student film." There was only a modest outline for the actors to work within, leading to a great deal of improvisation within each scene.

"We would show up for big scenes every day and we wouldn't know what we were going to say. We would have to go into our trailer and work on this scene and call up writers on the phone, 'You got any ideas?' Meanwhile the crew is tapping their foot on the stage waiting for us to come on."

Although Bridges says he felt anxious about having to come up with his own dialogue, he applauds both Robert Downey, Jr. and director Jon Favreau (who is also an actor accustomed to ad-libbing in his roles) for handling it all so adeptly, and with such a relaxed calm. This explains why Tony Stark ends up being so much like real-life Robert Downey, Jr., particularly in the first film. He, not a hired gun, came up with most of his own lines. It apparently didn't sit too well with Gwyneth Paltrow, who had the majority of her scenes alongside Downey. Reports from the set claim Paltrow often became frustrated because she simply couldn't keep up with what Downey was doing. And so one of the most memorable superheroes of our generation was essentially birthed from the mind and wit of Robert Downey, Jr.