The saga begins back in August, when the DTF St. Louis star responded to a Variety request to recite an out-of-context line from the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday. Harbour, adopting the Russian accent of his Red Guardian character, replied, “You… are Tony Stark,” seemingly revealing to all that Robert Downey Jr’s Doctor Doom is in fact Iron Man’s Tony Stark under the mask and cape. At least, that’s what Variety says.
But as reported by IGN, in a recent interview for ScreenRant Harbour, when confronted with his supposed movie-spoiling quote, says he never made the Stark-Doom connection at all. “Did I say that I said that?,” a visibly startled Harbour said, stammering, “No, I think you guys make this stuff up.”
Now, there are a couple of possibilities in play here. Variety could have made what is, in this age of steel-banded confidentiality agreements and their potential professional and legal consequences, a major error. Harbour himself claims that he recalls giving them only a Russian accented “Five, four, three, two, one…” countdown as his context-free line. (Apparently something is going to blow up in an Avengers movie—no spoilers.)
Another, perhaps more plausible thought is that the Disney-Marvel legal squadron descended on the Harbour compound to deliver one of those career-shaking ultimatums that the actor backpedal furiously away from his blunder, thus throwing a hard-working entertainment writer under the bus. Whichever the case, in the ScreenRant interview, Harbour does seem genuinely taken aback by the question, even though he does also recall fellow Thunderbolt Wyatt Russell chewing him out about his published spoiler at the time. Harbour shakily attempted to put the matter to bed, ultimately stating, “I don’t think I said that. If I did, I’m sorry. I don’t say that in the movie.” So, to sum up, either Robert Downey Jr’s Doom is Tony Stark or he’s not. But something definitely explodes.
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