Iron Man’s death scene in ‘Avengers: Endgame’ was improvised

Tom Holland has revealed that Iron Man’s heartbreaking death scene in Avengers: Endgame was mostly improvised.

In the sequence, Holland, who plays Spider-Man/Peter Parker in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Don Cheadle’s War Machine and Gwyneth Paltrow’s Pepper Potts all say goodbye to a mortally wounded Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr), who is about to die after using the Infinity Gauntlet to defeat Thanos.

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“When we shot that scene with Robert there was no real script, at all,” Holland recently told PINKVILLA, before then revealing just how intimate the set was.

“It was just Kevin Feige, the two Russo brothers, myself, Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow and Don Cheadle. They kind of brought us to set, they kind of told us what was gonna happen, or what they wanted to happen and then we sort of just improvised if I can remember correctly.”

“So, it was really, really interesting way to shoot such a kind of pivotal scene of the movie, but it was a really emotional day and I mean looking back on it now it was maybe the craziest day on set you know. But it was really amazing and turned out to be a fantastic scene."

Holland’s comments are in-line with what directors Joe and Anthony Russo told the Empire Podcast last week regarding Iron Man’s death scene, as they revealed that Robert Downey Jr actually insisted on remaining silent throughout it.

“Robert was like, ‘I'm not going to say f***ing anything. I don't want to talk, because it doesn't feel honest to me. And I don't think in that moment that he'd have the ability to speak’.”

“He was like, ‘I'm going to lay here, and you can let it unfold with the other characters, but I'm going to barely interact because that feels like a truthful choice to me’,” recalled Joe.

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His brother Anthony then added, “To have a character in that much pain, on the verge of death, it was important for us to create the feeling that when you looked at Tony Stark in that moment, you knew he was dying, and you had to process that in that moment.”

Tom Holland will return in Spider-Man: Far From Home, which is released on July 2.