Rebecca Hall: Iron Man 3 role was reduced

Back in May, Iron Man 3 director Shane Black revealed that an earlier draft of the Marvel movie featured a female villain, but that the character’s gender had to be changed because of concerns over toy sales.

Black added other female characters — like Brandt (Stephanie Szostak) and Maya Hansen (Rebecca Hall) — had larger roles in earlier drafts, and Hall is now echoing the filmmaker’s statements about her part in the film being reduced.

“That’s 100 percent true,” Hall told Postmedia Network at the Toronto International Film Festival, where her film Christine, is screening on Wednesday. “I’ve been gagging to talk about it with someone, but I haven’t had the opportunity, weirdly.”

Hall said she initially singed on “to do something that was a substantial role,” but that things changed during production.

“She wasn’t entirely the villain — there have been several phases of this — but I signed on to do something very different to what I ended up doing,” she explained. “Halfway through shooting they were basically like, ‘What would you think if you just got shot out of nowhere?’ I was meant to be in the movie until the end… I grappled with them for awhile and then I said, ‘Well, you have to give me a decent death scene and you have to give me one more scene with Iron Man,’ which Robert Downey Jr. supported me on.”

This November, three years after Iron Man 3 hit theaters, Marvel will have a new female villain on-screen with Cate Blanchett’s Hela in Thor: Ragnarok (though Tom Hiddleston’s Loki will also be back in that film to wreak more havoc), and Brie Larson will become the studio’s first woman to play the title character in a film with Captain Marvel in 2019 — a move that Hall praised.

“I applaud them for casting Brie Larson in Captain Marvel. Hallelujah. It’s about time women started being the heroes of things,” she said. They can also be the anti-heroes of the things and that’s what I feel I’m getting to do with Christine.”