Even with popular summer blockbusters, acting is difficult. When he was chosen to play Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr. was regarded as talented, but he was far from the star he would eventually become. Putting on the armor of a multi-billionaire weapons manufacturer-turned-superhero wasn’t simple, much alone overcoming his own inner demons and the concerns of Marvel Studios. Literally.
Downey Jr. had to put on an uncomfortable metal suit before donning the Iron Man costume in the 2008 film Iron Man. Few people are aware that Marvel used a tight budget to make the movie. It later went on to become a box office success and served as the entry point for the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
On his program My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman, Downey Jr. said, “At first, everything was actually present. They said: “Alright, Robert, it’s like you landed on the roof, so when we say action, just go like that, like you just landed, and then start going forward.” “I remember this helmet being put on, and then there would be a shot, and I’d be in this entire suit.” “So I put on this helmet, and it slammed down, and I couldn’t see anything, and then these LED lights turned on, and it was like The Manchurian Candidate,” he said. “I was totally in the dark.”
As filming technology advanced, his outfit appeared in later movies less and less as a real piece of metal and more and more as computer-generated graphics. By the time we were filming the final Avengers, they would just ask Robert to put on a helmet, saying, “Hey, Robert, would you mind?” No! Yes, no. Put two dots here and you may color it in later, Downey Jr. jokingly instructed. Downey Jr.’s nanotechnology-based suits, Mark L and Mark LXXXV, were wholly contained in a tiny device on Tony Stark’s chest in the films Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame.
