Don Cheadle has revealed that he had just two hours to decide if he wanted to join the cast of Iron Man 2 and sign a six-movie contract with Marvel.
The actor made his debut as James “Rhodey” Rhodes aka War Machine in the 2010 movie, taking over the part from Terrence Howard.
In a new interview with GQ magazine, Cheadle said of the day he got the role: “I was at my kid’s laser tag birthday party. They called me and said, ‘This is what’s happening and we’re giving you the offer. If you don’t say yes then we’re going to the next person.
“This is going to happen very fast. Why don’t you take an hour and decide if you want to do it.’ It was a six-movie deal! In an hour I have to decide?”
Cheadle said he asked Marvel what the other five movies would be, to which they replied: “It’s going to be these Avengers and this is what it is, so you have to say yes or no.”
When Cheadle asked what the trajectory of his character would be, he was told: “We don’t know any of that but this is what it is so you’ve got an hour.”
The actor explained that he was at his child’s birthday party, and only then did the studio extend the deadline to two hours.
Cheadle said: “So we played laser tag for two hours and I was talking to my wife and we thought about it and talked to my agent and tried to get as much information as we could.”
Last year, Cheadle’s multi-film contract with Marvel Studios came to an end, but he is set to reprise the Rhodey role in the forthcoming Disney+ series Secret Invasion, alongside Samuel L Jackson’s Nick Fury, and in his own series Armor Wars.
