Suit of steel, man of mettle?
Robert Downey Jr. embraces chance to revitalize career
Suit of steel, man of mettle?

By Matthew Price

Published: May 2, 2008

NEW YORK CITY — Robert Downey Jr. bounded into the interviewing room, as journalists gathered to hear his thoughts on "Iron Man.” Despite being on the next-to-last interview of the day, he was still full of energy — something like the superhero he portrays.

"How many of these have you done so far?” a journalist asks.

"Not enough for my taste,” Downey responds as he slips into his chair.

Sure, he's joking, but it's no joke that the buzz around "Iron Man” has gone a long way to revitalizing Downey's career. And the parallels between Tony Stark, who becomes Iron Man, and Downey, who plays the role, are no accident.

"I'm not age-appropriate to play most characters like this, and there's some roles I just don't see myself in,” Downey said. "So even if it would be a great opportunity for me, I know what my limitations are and — believe me, nobody wants to see me do that. But this was this kind of gray area because of the way Tony Stark is represented in the origin story.”

Director Jon Favreau agreed, saying that he thought fans would appreciate Downey in the role.

"He's got that same subversive sense of humor that Tony Stark does and that I do,” Favreau said. "He would add dimension to the role. Whatever things that may have been seen to other people as minuses based on his history, to me, only informs who Tony Stark is and is in complete conjunction with what Tony goes through over the course of 40 years of the books.”

Downey was a movie star in his 20s and was nominated for an Oscar in 1992 for "Chaplin.” His problems with drug addiction in the late 1990s and early 2000s took his career off-track.

Tony Stark is an arms inventor and dealer who created the Iron Man armor himself, using his own ingenuity. The events of the movie force Stark to realize he hasn't been responsible enough in keeping track of his company's doings. Favreau says that dovetails with Downey's own career.

"Nobody appreciates this opportunity more, to have another shot at this after what he's had and lost and to be able to come back bigger than ever,” Favreau said. "This is as redemptive of a story as the movie itself.”

Favreau as director was the main reason Downey wanted the part.

"I wanted to do this with Jon. I saw ‘Swingers,' and I knew Vince Vaughn was a star, but I knew Jon Favreau, in that scene on the telephone with that girl, was one of the most innovative writers in my generation,” Downey said. "Jon and I have this whatever — simpatico — together. And we both just came off these disappointing endeavors — ‘Kiss Kiss Bang Bang' and ‘Zathura.' And we thought we wanted to make good movies that people wanted to see.”

Favreau and Downey are potentially interested in returning for more "Iron Man,” should the first one hit big. It was very much in their minds that to do so, the first film had to be as strong as possible.

"We said, this is going to be our calling card working together as a team,” Downey said. "This was two years of Jon's life. And you only get one shot at doing the first one right. And if you blow that, there's no way.”

Travel and accommodations provided by Paramount Pictures.

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