Iron Man 3 - Sir Ben Kingsley interview

SIR Ben Kingsley talks about the pleasure of joining the cast of Iron Man 3 and why he believes this entry has a lot of heart. He was speaking at a UK press conference.

Q. This was a whole new world for you. How was it to enter?
Sir Ben Kingsley: Well, as a compliment to the rest of the people at the table, and deeply intended, the welcome that they give to a new boy is extraordinary. I think it’s a measure of their confidence and their joy in what they do and the franchise that the welcome they gave to me was so assured and so generous and so confident that within seconds I felt like a team player. It was a really extraordinary experience.

Q. Tony Stark is enhanced by the Iron Man suit. How much does that define him?
Sir Ben Kingsley: I think the film really does explore the exterior, the suit, the layer and what’s inside it on many levels. And I think that’s what Drew [Pearce] and Shane [Black] gave to it… the heart and the vulnerability. There are moments in the film of extreme violence always followed by moments of tenderness, comradeship, banter, vulnerability and I think that the structure of the film and what we all agreed to participate in is that movement from the indestructible and infallible to being vulnerable. So, it’s those swings that fascinated me and I know we were all keen to be in on the same page, to explore the bubble that you live in and what’s inside of it, what’s in the middle of the bubble. I live in a bubble anyway, so I’m fine with it [laughs].

Q. What was your reaction when you were handed a script that suggested you were playing a man with more than a large streak of theatrical ham running through his back-bone?
Sir Ben Kingsley: Of the many devices that The Mandarin employs, all of them are rooted in observation on my part and I won’t name names but some members of the audience might even recognise that I’m doing them! [Laughs] It was a beautiful script and as Shane [Black] has rightly pointed out, there’s very little deviation from what was on the page. I loved the writing. There was our mandate and we followed it pretty much to the letter.