Robert Downey Jr. Says Quality Of His Marvel Work Is Often Overlooked “Because Of The Genre”

Robert Downey Jr., fresh off his Golden Globe win as supporting actor in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, says some of his work was for the Marvel universe but that the performances have gone “a little bit unnoticed” because of the films’ comics genre.

On an episode of Rob Lowe’s Literally! podcast yesterday, Downey was speaking about his flop 2020 film Dolittle, which he filmed after leaving the “cocoon of Marvel.”

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“I felt so exposed after being in the cocoon of Marvel where I think I did some of the best work I will ever do, but it went a little bit unnoticed because of the genre,” Downey told Lowe, his friend since high school.

Downey played Tony Stark/Iron Man from 2008’s Iron Man to 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, a run that seems to have definitely come to an end: Last month, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige reiterated that the Downey era of Iron Man is closed.

Downey told Lowe that having the rug “pulled so definitively out from underneath me and all the things that I was leaning on as opposed to what my understanding of confidence and security was, boy did they evaporate. And it rendered me teachable.”

“And the crazy thing is they say when the student is ready, the Nolan will come,” Downey continued. “I mean, the teacher will come. And that’s what happened.”

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