Before he became the face of the MCU, Robert Downey Jr, had to battle his past as well as his substance abuse problems, a history that now has become a beacon of hope for people who are going through similar experiences to motivate and inspire them. The star made his return to the Hollywood industry by donning the suit of armor and has never looked back since.
Robert Downey Jr.
But getting to that point was harder than many could imagine, especially when you have such a chaotic past. Therefore, to make sure that no one else could steal the opportunity from him, he worked his hardest ever, trying to prove to the executives that he had changed, and now, is willing to change the face of cinema forever.
Robert Downey Jr. Faced Several Hardships To Become Iron Man!
Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark in a still from Avengers: Endgame
Where he now sits at the top of the Hollywood hierarchy as one of the most popular and rich stars of the industry, is all thanks to Robert Downey Jr. and his contributions to the MCU as the founding father of the cinematic juggernaut thanks to his depiction of Tony Stark in 2008’s Iron Man. But seeing as his past was one of the biggest demotivators for any studio to restart his career, he had to try harder than anyone else to bag this opportunity.
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During an interview with Deadline on the 10th anniversary of the creation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Downey Jr., along with Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige and director Jon Favreau talked about their journey so far in building such a successful and ever-expanding cinematic universe. Here, the Tropic Thunder star revealed his first interaction with Marvel Studios’ executives and what he felt when he was being screened. He said:
“I prepared for the screen test so feverishly that I literally made it impossible for anybody to do a better job, I had never worked on something that way before; I was so familiar with six or nine pages of dialogue, I had thought of every possible scenario. At a certain point during the screen test I was so overwhelmed with anxiety about the opportunity that I almost passed out. I watched it later, and that moment came, fluttered and wasn’t even noticeable. But to me it was this stretched-out moment of what keeps people from doing theater for 30 years — just an unadulterated fear of failure…I had prepped myself to the point where I was able to tumble over in that wave and not be dashed by it.”
Thus, by persevering and putting his heart and soul into his audition, he was able to make Iron Man, which gained a box office collection of $585 Million, and the rest is history.
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How The MCU Changed Cinema?
A still from Avengers: Endgame
With the advent of the MCU, the face of cinema changed into something else entirely. While films were made with just a single project in mind, they quickly shifted to a multi-project and franchise-focused battlefield with every studio going for the top spot. Along with this, the average budget for films started to rise exponentially, which gave more artistic and imaginative room to the creators to work with in terms of CGI. And one of the best parts, the stories themselves were able to flourish by going in-depth into creation through budding cinematic universes.
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Iron Man, streaming on Disney+
Source: Deadline
