Robert Downey Jr. turned out to be such a person! In order to act in a good movie, he gave up his superhero status for 11 years, and he didn't even use his signature moves! also confessed that playing Iron Man in the past hurt his acting skills a lot.
What exactly did he go through?
You must know him, he is the Iron Man/Tony Stark in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, from 2008 to 2019, he played this role in nine movies in 11 years, and finally sacrificed himself in "Avengers 4: Endgame".
But what you may not know is that in the process of playing Iron Man, he once worried that his acting skills would deteriorate. "You start to wonder if you have a muscle that has atrophied," he said. He was referring to the details and changes in acting that might be lost after more than a decade of playing the same role.
Asked if he was concerned about any impact playing Iron Man for 11 years on his acting skills, Downey replied: "Yes." Hundred percent. ”
So after "Avengers 4", Downey chose to leave Marvel and no longer play Iron Man.
In order to challenge himself, he accepted the invitation of the famous director Christopher Nolan to star in an epic film "Oppenheimer" about Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb. In the film, he plays Strauss, chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, a character with a complicated relationship with Oppenheimer. The film gave Downey the opportunity to show acting skills that he couldn't show in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Nolan didn't want Downey to rely on his "usual tricks," saying, "those quick-talking, charming, unpredictable, etc., etc., etc. "Nolan wanted Downey to be fully immersed in another person's life, showing his subtlety and excellence. Nolan said: "He was a great actor, and while a generation of kids knew him as a great movie star, they may not have seen his past delicate and outstanding acting. I wanted him to do something completely different and leave himself inside another person. When was the last time we saw Downey like this? "Chaplin"? Directors know very well how talented Downey is, but because of his powerful energy that can penetrate the screen, it is difficult to find something that suits him. ”
Working with Nolan also allowed Downey to return to a more practical shooting mode. Unlike Marvel movies, Nolan used live-action and physical effects when filming Oppenheimer, and even rebuilt the Manhattan Project Village to avoid shooting in the studio. This made Downey very happy. "From where that box office weekend reigned and back into where I'm now, I'm happy that I'm in this high-quality project — I'm glad I've regained my connection to the purer way of making film," he said. ”
What you may not know is that Downey almost missed the role of Iron Man because his past worries Marvel's board. Downey was effectively banned by Hollywood in 1996 for bad behavior, and no one wanted to ask him to act.
At the time, he was an outcast in Hollywood. Marvel was torn between him and Timothy Olyphant (Detective in the Line of Fire). David Maiser, a former president of Marvel Studios, said: "My board thinks I'm crazy to hand over the company's future to an addict. I helped them understand how well he was for the role. We all have confidence in him staying awake and clean. ”
In the end, it turns out that Marvel's decision was the right one, saving Downey and Marvel himself.
But now Downey decided to leave.
"Oppenheimer" has been released in the United States and around the world, and its box office and reviews continue to soar. Chinese mainland has also been confirmed for introduction.
What do you think of Robert Downey Jr.'s statement? Does playing Iron Man for a long time have any impact on his acting skills? Do you want Robert Downey Jr. to continue to return to playing Iron Man?
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