Attending the Iron Man 2 press conference today, I couldn't help but notice how much it played like the kind of press conference Tony Stark would throw in the film. Holding court was Robert Downey Jr, who cracked one-liners every time someone tried to ask him a serious question, and on either side of him were Gwyneth Paltrow and director Jon Favreau (who also plays body man Happy Hogan in the film) reprising their movie roles and doing their best to rein him in. With that in mind, then, here are the 9 best quotes the press was able to get out of Downey Jr:
On whether he ever dressed as a superhero growing up:
"Growing up, no, but in my mid-30's in Palm Springs right before my arrest, yes."
On Mickey Rourke accepting a question that had nothing to do with his character's pet:
"Mickey, I'm sorry. Hold the hell up. Can we talk about the parrot? I don't know why the parrot is not on the poster."
On what he thinks a hero is:
"I think a hero is someone who, if abroad or traveling, they go to the GOOP website to see what shops to go to, what restaurants to eat at, what clothes to buy, and they do that not fearlessly but in spite of their fear."
On doing sequels:
"Scarlett Johansson was in Home Alone 3. Don Cheadle was in [Ocean's] 11, 12, AND 13!"
On a take where he got to kiss Gwyneth Paltrow:
"Despite what she said on set, she still thinks about it."
On his wife Susan joining the Iron Man franchise as a producer:
"On a certain level, they might have thought she would tame me, but I was completely out of my mind."
On a journalist who kept asking questions about why Sam Rockwell was missing from both the poster and the press conference:
"That's enough. This is embarrassing. You're embarrassing yourself."
On Jon Favreau's rapidly expanding screen time...and waistline:
"By the time we were doing reshoots, they were framing him out of shots."
On the Iron Man 2 banner falling off the latticework behind them at the end of the press conference:
"Ladies and gentlemen, Sam Rockwell!"
[Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images]