Captain America: Civil War stars Robert Downey Jr, Don Cheadle starting to feel their age

“Captain America: Civil War” actors Robert Downey Jr. and Don Cheadle are starting to feel the strain when it comes to action films.

“The good thing is that, contractually, I’m finished with these by the time I’m 65, so I think just one more course of steroids and I think I’ll be just fine,” joked Cheadle at a press conference in Paris, Monday, ahead of the film’s French premiere in the capital.

“Don and I talk about this too because there’s this inevitable thing that happens,” added Downey Jr.

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“You’re in your early 40s and then you’re in your mid-40s and then all of a sudden you’re looking at the back nine. I think on ‘Iron Man 3,’ Don was like, ‘I’ve got another, more like action, more action movies,’ and I was like, ‘I know, me too.’ And the clock starts to tick on that a little bit, you know.”

Downey Jr. reprises his role as Iron Man in the movie – the third “Captain America” film – while Cheadle is back as War Machine.

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The new tale sees the government setting up a regulating body to oversee the Avengers, which fractures the team into two camps: one led by Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) and his wish for the Avengers to remain free to defend humanity without interference, the other backing Tony Stark (Downey Jr.) and his decision to support the government.

The directors of “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” brothers Anthony and Joe Russo, return to helm “Civil War,” to Downey Jr.’s delight.

“Why I love the Russos so much, they’re like surgeons,” said the actor.

“They’re going like, ‘We’re going to really watch this and really play with the levels and the interactions and the editing and what to highlight and what not to miss,’ so it really is kind of like great cheffing.”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "They're going like, 'We're going to really watch this and really play with the levels and the interactions and the editing and what to highlight and what not to miss,' so it really is kind of like great cheffing."

Despite “Civil War“‘s story and themes continuing on from previous Marvel films, the sibling directors aimed to create a movie that could be enjoyed by newcomers to the franchise, as well as die-hard fans.

“The one thing that’s really important with these movies is as they progress they seem to become more and more popular, so you see more and more audiences coming to them. You necessarily know that there are going to be people in the movie theater who haven’t seen the previous movies, so it’s very important for us to be able to make each movie for fresh eyes,” explained Anthony Russo.

“It’s not just for fans, it’s not just for people who’ve been following the series, movie to movie, you have to be able to walk into the movie theater and sit down and enjoy the movie beginning to end without any previous knowledge. It’s a difficult balance to walk but it’s a really important one. You have to satisfy two audiences – the hardcore fan audience and what we call virgin eyes.”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "It's not just for fans, it's not just for people who've been following the series, movie to movie, you have to be able to walk into the movie theater and sit down and enjoy the movie beginning to end without any previous knowledge. It's a difficult balance to walk but it's a really important one. You have to satisfy two audiences - the hardcore fan audience and what we call virgin eyes."

“Civil War” also stars Scarlett Johansson, Anthony Mackie, Jeremy Renner, Sebastian Stan, Paul Bettany, Chadwick Boseman, Elizabeth Olsen, Daniel Bruhl and Paul Rudd.

It opens in France on 27 April 2016.