Yeah. I Can Fly.

I was hoping against hope that the Iron Man movie would fizzle and short circuit like one of Tony Stark’s prototype armored flight suits, but fate has a funny way of screwing over me specifically.

Let me back up. This flash-and-grab brouhaha everyone is paying $11.25 to sit through was supposed to feature yours truly. John Favreau approached me early on, but it wasn’t until Robert Downey personally took me out to lunch at Sardi’s that I was swayed to play a part that I had grave concerns about: a goose. You know how in movies where something that shouldn’t be able to fly—a killer whale, an Oriental rug carrying a monkey wearing a fez, Robin Williams—is flying? And then they fly past, say, a flying V of geese? And one of the geese maybe does a double take and makes a face like BRAWWWK?! I THOUGHT GEESE WERE THE ONLY THING THAT COULD FLY BOY WOW AM I SURPRISED TO SEE YOU UP HERE WTF?

The only thing America can agree on: punching the ground is awesome.

Well, I was supposed to be that goose for Iron Man. He would fire up and go careening through some CGI’d clouds, and I would be there to feign shock, thereby degrading my species, when he did. We did fourteen takes despite having a keeper on the third. I always say there are no small actors, only small wingspans, and I left everything on the table. I became my role, forsaking my responsibility to defy the stereotype that geese are small-minded and easily bewildered.

And I paid dearly. Didn’t even make the final cut. “A little cartoony,” Favreau said as my shot at the big-time landed on the cutting-room floor, I guess to save time for his cameo.

—Nero