Robert Downey Jr. talks life after Iron Man, 'Avengers': 'I am not my work'
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Robert Downey Jr. opened up about life after Iron Man now that he’s finished playing the superhero in Marvel’s Cinematic Universe with “Avengers: Endgame.”
The actor stepped into the role of Tony Stark in the 2008 film “Iron Man.” After 10 years in one of the most successful franchises of all time, he got candid about how he’s coping with the next stage of his career being so uncertain.
“I have not been forced to explore the new frontier of what is my creative and personal life after this," Downey during an appearance on “Off Camera With Sam Jones.” "It's always good to get ahead of where you are about to be. If you put eyes on 'that's going to be a big turn down there, spring of '19,' I better start psychically getting on top of that.”
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He continued: “There's always a dependency on something that feels like a sure thing. It's the closest I will ever come to being a trust fund kid.”
Fortunately, the 54-year-old actor won’t be without work for long. The Hollywood Reporter notes that he’s got “The Voyage of Doctor Dolittle” and “Sherlock Holmes 3” in the pipeline as his next projects that could lead to a wider franchise. However, new roles could be hard for him. Downey explained that he had to take proactive steps to avoid completely disappearing into the Tony Stark persona, saying he leaned on his theater training of creating “aesthetic distance.”
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“Initially, by creating and associated and synergizing with Tony Stark and the Marvel Universe… and being a good company man, but also being a little off kilter, being creative and getting into all these other partnerships, it was a time when… what do they say? Pets start looking like their owners?” he said.
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“I am not my work. I am not what I did with that studio. I am not that period of time that I spent playing this character,” he continued. “And it sucks, because the kid in all of us wants to be like, ‘No. It’s always going to be summer camp and we’re all holding hands and singing Kumbaya.’”
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Despite trying to create aesthetic distance from the superhero, he concluded by noting the parallel he notices between his future and Stark’s journey from a self-serving egomaniac to the person that makes sacrifices for the greater good.
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“It’d be really a pity if I couldn’t ingest that and make, you know, and make adjustments moving forward so that I don’t regress to old behaviors or, you know, say, ‘Well, where’s my next massive franchise?!’” he joked. “It doesn’t feel right.”
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