The Robert Downey Jr. Film Guide: Iron Man (2008)

Comic book adaptation about a troubled billionaire who fights crime and terrorism.

Tony Stark, a genius billionaire playboy who makes himself into a superhero.

Dashing, very well dressed, fit. In other words, great.

Strong, convincing, makes the movie.

It is one thing to question the official story, and another thing entirely to make wild accusations, or insinuate that I’m a superhero. That would be outlandish and fantastic. I’m just not the hero type. Clearly. With this laundry list of character defects, all the mistakes I’ve made, largely public.

He’s an international playboy who flirts with every woman in sight, including his assistant (Gwyneth Paltrow).

Gwyneth Paltrow, Terrence Howard, Jeff Bridges

Gwyneth Paltrow in Iron Man 2, Iron Man 3, The Avengers, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. Jon Favreau in Iron Man 2, Iron Man 3, Chef, Spider-Man: Homecoming and Avengers: Endgame, Samuel L. Jackson in Hail Caesar, Iron Man 2, The Avengers, The Avengers: Age of Ultron, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. Clark Gregg in Iron Man 2 and The Avengers. Leslie Bibb in Iron Man 2. Paul Bettany in Iron Man 2, Iron Man 3, The Avengers, The Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. Stan Lee in The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Iron Man 3, The Avengers, The Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War.

Iron Man was a meditation on responsibility and an exploration of how a small group of people can take a two-dimensional idea and, if the winds are right, create something that makes people say, “That was my favorite movie of the year.” ... Iron Man, to me, is an exciting enough event for most people that it has kind of eclipsed the usual thing of when I go in [to an interview] and I have worked my ass off on a movie and they never even mention the title. All they want to do is talk about the five dumbest things, or the five illest moments I have ever had in my life ... I’m really excited about it. Stark is the superhero who is just a man. Not that I wouldn’t play a guy who was bitten by a spider or has some freaky connection with bats, but I think Iron Man is more accessible. The fact that he’s practically killed by one of his own weapons is the kind of myth that is very timely. I’m going to give it everything I’ve got ... This seemed the right time to play Iron Man, while I still have the energy and a limited amount of gray hair, which I can easily lose with a semipermanent rinse ... 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 ... The morning Jon Favreau called and told me I’d gotten the gig—I still get all choked up just remembering. It was such an invitation to this cornucopia of possibilities. And it all happened ... It’s the same pressure as Chaplin, except there’s no reference. You’re creating the reference ... Like Tony Stark, I took some hits mostly in my own making, but everyone transforms, some of it is just a function of age. I’m not in my twenties. I’m not in my thirties ... The character is a combination of Jon and I. Tony Stark is his direction and my execution and sometimes my ideas and then his direction of those ideas ... My involvement [in the creative development] was I tended to show up to the set most mornings, take the script, throw it against the wall and say, “We gotta rewrite this.” Jon [Favreau] would say, “Oh, good morning. I see you don’t like the scenes today.” It had a good structure and what we tried to do, and I believe somewhat successfully, was infuse it with more slightly more watchable stuff ... I thought maybe I’d like to be in a movie that more than 16 people would see ... We said we needed the greatest Pepper Potts we could think of. Suddenly I am on the phone and Chris Martin is answering saying, “Yeah?” I’m like, “Hey, it’s Robert Downey, is Gwyneth there?” “What?” “No really, it’s Robert Downey Jr, really.” He goes, “Robert Downey fucking Jr is on the phone.” And then we really, really, really went after Jeff Bridges hard because he was definitely reticent, and he is, he’s a very, very picky guy ... Because the suit is 6'5" tall and I’m not, once they called action and slammed the helmet down, I realized that I was not looking through the eye slots but, basically, through the nostrils. And there are no openings in the nostrils ... There’s a scene where we’re out in the high desert and these massive 60-mile-an-hour winds are blowing. And sand is everywhere, and I’m in this Mark I suit. And everyone’s wearing dust masks. I’m just in this contraption, and I looked around and said, “We have to get this right now.” It was so ridiculously funny—it’d be impossible that you’d survive. So what do you do? For some reason or another I just started cracking up ... [My two body doubles and I] took turns complaining [about wearing the suit]. I’d come in on the day that he was shooting second unit. And he’d be like laid out in a pool of sweat and still like in half in the suit. He’d just be like [groaning], “Dude...” He’d be like, “You’re on tomorrow, right?” And I’d be like, “I’m on, dude. We’re going to do the close-ups and I’ll swing through the thing.” He goes, “Cool!” We had like a support group. He’d come in the next day, he’d be like, “Man, you cool? Can I get you something?” I was like, “Maybe an Advil,” and then we’d both go visit the third guy ... The first Iron Man was essentially wrapping the character around a cooler version of “me.” As we've gone along, I'm starting to wonder who's playing who, and I'm glad there are so many talented new people in the Marvel lineup. Ultimately, I'm real, and he's not. It's kind of important for me to remember that.

Contemporary California and a fictional sort of Middle Eastern town.

Marvel’s Iron Man comics

Released in theaters 2 May 2008. On DVD and Blu Ray everywhere in the universe and possibly in alternate universes.

Iron Man: The Abridged Script
Iron Man Honest Trailer

Argentina: Iron man - El hombre de hierro (The Iron Man)
Brazil: Homem de Ferro (Man of Iron)
China: Steel-Xia
Estonia: Raudmees
Hungary: A Vasember (The Ironman)
Japan: Aianman

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Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Tony Stark is created from the persona Downey has fashioned through many movies: irreverent, quirky, self-deprecating, wise-cracking. The fact that Downey is allowed to think and talk the way he does while wearing all that hardware represents a bold decision by the director, Jon Favreau. If he hadn’t desired that, he probably wouldn’t have hired Downey. So comfortable is Downey with Tony Stark’s dialogue, so familiar does it sound coming from him, that the screenplay seems almost to have been dictated by Downey’s persona.

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Too often movies adapted from comic books come with their own split personalities. There’s the flat, prosaic story, with ... thinly scripted regular-guy roles. And then there are the special-effects parts, when suddenly we’re asked to believe that a man can fly... The fun of Iron Man, a Marvel adaptation in which a routine arc has been burnished with great elegance and skill, is the way that it heals the split, soldering the two halves of its hero into a single organically driven figure.

1. The wildy popular blockbuster finally turned him from a troubled actor into a superstar. If you haven’t seen it yet, what are you waiting for?
2. You’re tired of those morally superior, mutant superheroes.

Even if the superhero thing isn’t your scene, he spends a lot of time out of the suit acting like an exagerated industrialist version of himself.