Guy Pearce initially turned down a role in ‘Iron Man 3’.
The ‘Memento’ star has confessed he refused to accept the part of villain Aldrich Killian in Shane Black’s superhero movie at first because they wouldn’t show him the script upfront.
He explained in an interview with Total Film magazine: "My agent was certainly very excited by the prospect of ‘Iron Man 3’, and I knew it would be seen by a lot more people [than my previous films did]. But for me, it was just a case of going, ‘Well, this will be fun. I like Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow and I like what they did before.
"When I watched the first one, I thought, ‘Wow, there’s something different here.’ Shane [Black], who directed the third, had been a fan of mine, apparently. He called up and I had a meeting with him and he said, ‘We’re not allowed to give you the script but I can tell you all about it.’ He ran me through the whole story over lunch. It sounded really interesting.
"But I did end up saying to my agent, ‘I’m not going to do this movie until they show me the script.’ And my agent went [sharp intake of breath], ‘They really don’t want to show you the script.’ So I said I wasn’t going to do it."
Pearce, 46, ended up reaching a compromise with the production team and they sent him a time-sensitive link to the script.
He said: "They sent me the script via link. You have two hours to read it before your computer blows up! And it was fine – it was exactly what we’d talked about."
The star certainly has no regrets about signing on for ‘Iron Man 3’, which went on to become the sixth highest-grossing film of all time, raking in $1.215 billion at the global box office.
Pearce added: "It’s even better than I thought it was going to be; I think it’s a great movie."
Guy Pearce turned down Iron Man 3 role at first
