The stars of the Marvel Cinematic Universe go through a lot on-screen, but some of their
biggest battles seem to be waged while promoting the films.
From dodging awkward underwear questions to being victims of all-out pranks, these are
the most uncomfortable interviews with Marvel actors.
Actors and actresses always seem to get a different line of questioning from the media.
Though Scarlett Johansson tends to handle some stranger moments with patience and grace,
she appeared to have enough of one particular question during a press junket for The Avengers.
When speaking with Extra, Johansson was asked:
"Were you able to wear undergarments?"
“You're like the fifth person to ask me that.
What is going on?
What?"
Then, to illuminate how strange the question is to ask, Johansson told the interviewer
to ask if director Joss Whedon was wearing underwear.
"Was I wearing underwear?
Gosh.
Ask Joss."
"I did!"
"You asked Joss what kind of underwear he wears?"
In a later interview with Cosmo UK, Johansson seemingly referenced the infamous undies query,
jokingly prodding her co-star Mark Ruffalo about his skivvies.
"Are you wearing underwear?
No, no, tell us."
"How do you answer that question?"
Then, the outlet decided to have some fun with this trend of weird gender-specific questions,
flipping the script and asking Ruffalo some of the questions that women tend to get asked.
He was a good sport about it.
"So did you feel much pressure to slim down, get in shape, go on a diet, Mark?"
"Not really."
"You ate a bunch of peanut butter, did some push-ups, right?"
When Samuel L. Jackson and Brie Larson attended The Jonathan Ross Show to promote Captain
Marvel, they probably expected to talk about their new movie.
Instead, they had to witness a long public explanation and apology from comedian Seann
Walsh about his cheating scandal on Strictly Come Dancing.
"If you behave the way I did privately, that's bad enough, but for it to go so public…"
According to The Sun, the Marvel actors were none too pleased about having to sit through
the painfully awkward and very personal moment.
Considering the fun they seemed to have together on other press junket interviews, it must
have been extra painful for the two stars.
“My wrist?
Stop watching.”
“My neck, is flossy.”
“My bank deposits, my gloss is poppin.”
“You like my hair?
Gee, thanks, just bought it.”
While visiting Sway in the Morning, Terrence Howard was asked to explain what really went
down behind the scenes in between Iron Man and Iron Man 2.
After playing the role of James Rhodes in Iron Man, Howard was removed from the franchise
and replaced by Don Cheadle for the second film.
According to Howard, the studio approached him after the first film with a much lower
offer for his return than was originally promised:
"We think the movie will be successful with or without you, so, instead of the $8 million
we said we were going to pay you, we're going to let you come back for a million dollars."
While this story is crazy, things take a weirder turn:
"The best thing that happened as a result of it is that I went back to school and got
my doctorate in chemical engineering and now I have a company where we grow diamonds."
Though impressive, some reports suggest this might not be the full truth.
Reports say that Howard only received an honorary degree.
By now, nearly every Marvel fan has heard of the Mark Ruffalo Infinity War spoiler on
Good Morning America.
The actor rocked the MCU and its fans with a nugget of information that gave away one
of the biggest twists in the franchise.
In the interview, Ruffalo looks to Don Cheadle for advice on how much he can say.
Cheadle wisely advises against spoiling the end of Thor: Ragnarok when asked about it.
"Can I say it?"
"No!"
"Can I just give him a little taste?"
"I wouldn't say too much, but you can say as much as you… it's your career."
Though Ruffalo escapes the Thor question relatively unscathed, he then drops a major spoiler for
Infinity War.
"Wait till you see this next one.
Ha-everybody dies."
"Dude, dude!"
"Ha… not everybody.
Not everybody.
Is that…?"
Knowing how that one works out, we see that Ruffalo was very close to giving away the
entire ending.
When Ruffalo starts questioning how much trouble he's going to get in for his blunder, Cheadle
has some good advice:
"Am I in trouble?"
"A little!"
"Is Barry gonna be mad?"
"Dude, I would just move on.
I wouldn't try to focus on it."
During the press circuit for Avengers: Endgame, there appeared to be a little competitive
energy lingering between Chris Hemsworth and Brie Larson.
During an interview with Entertainment Tonight, things got a bit bristly between the two,
and fans have taken to dissecting the interview ever since.
"Is there any competition between the different sects, the different groups?"
"There's no competition for me because I'm the strongest."
"Ehhhh, I let her think that."
The one moment that stood out in the interview above all others, came after Hemsworth joked
that Larson did her own stunts like Tom Cruise.
"I did my stunts because I thought that's what everyone did!"
"Oh, we've got the next Tom Cruise over here."
"I'll be the first me, not the next Tom Cruise, thank you very much."
Comic conventions bring out all kinds of interesting people, and that can lead to some uncomfortable
exchanges.
That seems to be what went down during a Marvel panel at ACE Comic Con in 2018.
With Tom Holland, Sebastian Stan, and Anthony Mackie on stage being interviewed by Kevin
Smith, things were thrown to the crowd for a Q&A.
For the last question, two fans came up, essentially to gush at Tom Holland and his dog, Tessa.
"I didn't really have a question, but my friend Ruthie back there has some fanart of Tom and
Tessa."
When Stan asks who Tessa was, the fan snaps:
"Who's Tessa?"
"His dog — Oh my gosh, educate yourself!”
Holland tried to smooth things over by telling the fans they were making him look bad, but
it was too late.
Stan made a quip about the girls spending too much time on the internet, and Mackie
chimed in with his own comment.
"He's posting pictures of him and his dog?"
"Yeah!"
"He's just hanging out at home with his dog?"
"Do you not follow Tom on Instagram?"
"Baby, I'm an adult."
Not every joke lands and, sometimes, the jokester lands in hot water when a joke is made in
poor taste.
Celebrities have to be extra cautious about this, particularly during interviews.
Jeremy Renner and Chris Evans found this out the hard way during a Digital Spy interview
when they were asked what they thought of Natasha Romanoff's love life in the MCU.
The interviewer reminds the actors that Johansson's character appeared to be interested in either
or both of their characters but eventually went with Mark Ruffalo's Bruce Banner.
The two actors had a poor joke in response:
"She's a sl*t."
"I was going to say something along that line.
She's a complete wh*re.”
“TRICK, man."
Well, fans didn't love that kind of language or the idea that Johansson's character was
being reduced in such a way, and they let the world know about it.
Renner and Evans responded with a public apology.
Evans said the joke was "very juvenile and offensive," while Renner had a milder apology:
"I am sorry that this tasteless joke about a fictional character offended anyone."
In 2015, while promoting Avengers: Age of Ultron, Robert Downey Jr. sat down with Channel
4 News' Krishnan Guru-Murthy.
After talking about the character of Iron Man in general the discussion veered into
a very particular topic:
"What do you think of the obvious parallels being made between you and Iron Man?"
When Downey Jr. gave an answer regarding their minor similarities in the first Iron Man,
Guru-Murthy dug in deeper:
"But he's becoming a much more likable character, isn't he?
A better man?"
"Yeah, he's becoming a better guy."
"In a way, you are as well."
When Downey Jr. neglected to give a full answer, the interviewer reframed the question, bringing
up the actor's brief incarceration.
At this mention, the smile fades from Downey's face and he starts to look off camera toward
his team.
Guru-Murthy then delved into the actor's political views, asking if he was a liberal or not.
Downey Jr. tried to dodge the question by saying he doesn't identify as a specific type
of political supporter:
"I'm certainly not going to backpeddle on anything I've said, but I wouldn't say that
I'm a republican or a liberal or a democrat."
Unwilling to pivot, the interviewer then tried to get in questions about "the dark periods"
Downey Jr. went through, asking if he felt he was free of all of that.
That's about when Downey Jr. seems to have had enough of the interview
"I'm sorry, I really don't know... what are we doing?"
"Well, I'm just asking questions."
"Right.
Bye."
Everyone has a different idea of what celebrity means and what one should do with it.
Brie Larson often uses her voice and her audience to speak about the issues that concern her,
such as fair and balanced representation in the entertainment industry.
However, it's not the same for everyone, which is what led to a bit of an uncomfortable moment
in an NDTV interview with Larson and Jeremy Renner.
When asked if their position comes with responsibility, Larson had a measured answer:
"I am committed to self-improvement, and I work at being the best person that I can be
and using this platform for as much good as I can, but it doesn't mean that I don't make
mistakes."
Her answer was well thought out and respectable.
When it came to Renner's turn, however, he interpreted the question a little differently.
"I'm pretty accountable and responsible in my own life.
Celebrity is not something I use as any sort of platform."
Whether he meant it as a rebuke to Larson, or Renner just didn't think his response through
completely, it certainly made for an awkward soundbite as a follow-up answer.
Paul Rudd has a knack for seizing an opportunity for laughs when he spots one.
So, when his chair made a suspicious noise during an interview with Fandom Entertainment,
he made sure to squeeze every piece of comedy out of it.
"Big things really do come in small packages."
"It's the chair.
It's leather."
"I'm sure, you just came back from lunch, I got it."
The interviewer then asked what Rudd does in his suit that people don't know about.
"I guess, uh, I guess I just do the same stuff everybody else does."
After a few more fart jokes had the interviewer and crew dying from laughter, Rudd asks a
very good question:
"Should we see if we can do this whole interview with you even getting out one question?"
Well, that's basically how it went.
Whenever he was asked a question, Rudd would answer through the rhythm of chair farts,
even adding in some facial expressions to really sell the performance.
"Captain America or Iron Man?"
"They're great.
Both of them.
Great guys."
Scarlett Johansson may get a lot of weird questions, but she doesn't get them all.
Perhaps in an effort to catch the actors off-guard, some interviewers ask about things no one
really needs to know about.
In competition for the strangest question of all, one interviewer decided to ask Anthony
Mackie, Sebastian Stan, and Winston Duke something personal:
"What did your costume smell like the last day of the shoot?"
"Why ask that question?"
Stan's co-workers seemed to enjoy their co-star's discomfort:
"Hard line.
He drew a hard line on that question."
"The question is, what's your next question?"
When promoting a movie, actors are contractually obligated to participate in interviews, even
the really excruciating ones.
Knowing this, some internet personalities decided to prank Tom Holland while he was
on a press run for Avengers: Infinity War.
"Why are you pretending to be British for the interview?"
"I am British."
Holland was soon forced to clarify even further:
"I just do an American accent when I play Spider-Man."
"How is that possible?"
"Well, I just did it."
From there, the interviewer challenges Holland's acting skills, confuses him with Tobey Maguire,
and asks if he can lick his shoes.
"Could I lick your shoes?
They look awfully clean."
"What?
Sorry?"
Remarkably, Holland keeps his composure throughout the awkward interview until the curtain is
pulled back to reveal the prank.
"That was an odd experience, but I enjoyed myself.
That was fun — Thanks for livening up my afternoon."
Holland's response is a pretty effective way of putting the "friendly" in your friendly
neighborhood Spider-Man.
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