Robert Downey Jr. Would ‘Happily’ Return to Marvel After Oscar Win; Gwyneth Paltrow Says He’d Throw Out ‘Iron Man’ Lines and Go: ‘I’m Not F—ing Saying These’
Robert Downey Jr. is not closing the door on the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which he kicked off in 2008 with “Iron Man” and headlined for 11 years through 2019’s “Avengers: Endgame.” Iron Man met his demise in that tentpole, but that has never stopped rumors from circulating that Marvel is trying to bring Downey back into the fold, especially now that the MCU has hit a box office rough patch with 2023 flops such as “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” and “The Marvels.” Certainly, Downey’s return as Iron Man could restore Marvel to its blockbuster glory days.
Speaking to Esquire magazine after his Oscar win for “Oppenheimer” last month, Downey was asked if he would ever return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe now that he is officially an Academy Award winner. The actor didn’t hesitate to answer yes.
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“Happily. It’s too integral a part of my DNA,” Downey said. “That role chose me. And look, I always say, ‘Never, ever bet against Kevin Feige.’ It is a losing bet. He’s the house. He will always win.”
Feige, the president of Marvel Studios, told Vanity Fair last December that Downey’s Iron Man will not return as it would ruin his perfect exit in “Avengers: Endgame.”
“We are going to keep that moment and not touch that moment again,” Feige said at the time. “We all worked very hard for many years to get to that, and we would never want to magically undo it in any way.”
Asked about any new Marvel offers during an interview in January on Rob Lowe’s “Literally!” podcast, Downey responded: “Not just yet.”
Elsewhere during his Esquire cover story, Downey’s longtime Marvel co-star Gwyneth Paltrow remembered how he would just throw out lines of dialogue before each day of filming on the “Iron Man” movies. According to Esquire: “Paltrow eventually stopped bothering to learn her lines at all” because of Downey’s knack for tossing out the script.
“There would be this process of [director] Jon Favreau and Robert and I going into Jon’s trailer in the morning and Robert being like, ‘I’m not fucking saying these lines’ and throwing them out,” Paltrow remembered. “And then live improv-ing either in the trailer or on the set. I think in order for something to feel alive for Robert, it has to feel fresh, and he makes it fresh by making it feel like it was just invented. So many of those famous lines were written 10 minutes before we said them.”
Both Paltrow and Downey last appeared in the MCU in 2019’s “Endgame.” Paltrow played Pepper Potts to Downey’s Tony Stark in three “Iron Man” movies, plus other Marvel films such as “Spider-Man: Homecoming” and more. During a Q&A with fans on Instagram last year, Paltrow said her time with Marvel was probably over because “why do you need Pepper Potts without Iron Man?”
Head over to Esquire’s website to read Downey’s cover story in its entirety.
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