Avengers: Infinity War is going to bring together Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and the Guardians of the Galaxy to do battle with Thanos and that alone is reason enough to be excited about Marvel Studios’ next movie. During a recent chat with Empire Magazine, Chris Pratt was asked about working alongside Robert Downey Jr. and shared some very interesting insight into how the actor conducts himself.
While you might think Downey keeps himself to himself and stays in his massive trailer between takes, it turns out that he’s willing to do anything and everything to help his fellow actors and went Pratt was in need, the Iron Man star was quick to give him a helping hand on the set of Avengers: Infinity War.
“Man, he set a really amazing tone. He’s a bit like Tony Stark himself. I think a lot of what makes Tony Stark are the same qualities that make Downey great. I think Downey is about as rich as Tony Stark now. [Laughs] He really takes care of the actors around him in a way I’ve never seen before. I was a little under the weather and pushing really hard on the days I was working. He came up to me and said, ‘You doing alright?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I’ve got a little sore throat.’ Within ten minutes there was a person here giving me all these herbs and taking care of me. He offered me the use of his trailer where I could sit down and use some of his hi-tech healing gadgets. It was amazing. I’m living my best life.”
Pratt went on to reveal that he actually heard from Downey when he was first cast as Star-Lord in Guardians of the Galaxy and it’s something which has had a significant impact on him moving forward.
“When I first arrived in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Downey was the first to call and tell me, ‘Hey man, welcome. If there’s anything you need, I will help. There are so few people on the planet who are going through what you’re going through right now. I have, so I’m here. I’ll always answer the phone.’ I feel completely empowered to pay it forward with Tom or Chadwick. I’m not saying that I’m senior to them, other than I got that experience of opening a movie with Marvel and being along for the ride. Now I just really feel compelled to offer them, even if it’s a fraction of what Downey was able to offer me, and just say, ‘Anything you need, you let me know.’"
In preparation for Infinity War (sort of), I just re-watched Iron Man (2008) for the first time in 3 years. Some thoughts:
I guess they were doing this on purpose, but early Tony’s attitude toward women is really pretty gross… and Pepper kind of reinforces it with her loyalty to Tony and her attitude toward the women he sleeps with (“sometimes I even take out the trash”). That seems to support the stereotypical division between women you hook up with and women you marry – trashy, disposable women and respectable, valuable women. That aspect of the movie has not aged well.
I also kind of winced at the generic Arab-looking terrorists. Yinsen did say they were from a variety of nations, speaking a variety of languages including European ones, but they still all looked vaguely brown and threatening. As usual, that part of the world is mostly divided into villains and victims; Tony needs to fly in with his high-tech suit to save the poor villagers (though it was a good touch that he didn’t personally take vengeance on the man who captured and tortured him). Yinsen is something of an exception, since he’s shown having skill, ingenuity, and initiative… but then he sacrifices himself to save Tony. Of course.
Having gotten used to Don Cheadle playing Rhodey, it’s very weird to see Terrence Howard in the role. What a strange recast. Facial structure, skin tone, vocal register, and general manner are all completely different. Don Cheadle strikes me as more serious, so more believable as a high-ranking military officer, but Terrence Howard seems more like the kind of guy who hung out with Tony Stark in college and continues to put up with his shit.
I love Coulson so much. It’s so funny to see him in his first movie appearance, now that he’s become a running gag and then a sacrificial lamb and then one of the heroes of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. He does mild-mannered and put-upon so adorably.
How far Tony Stark has come! And Robert Downey, Jr. has shepherded him gradually and organically through his maturation from self-centered, immature playboy to cocky, self-assured part-time hero to struggling PTSD sufferer to adult man trying to carry the world on his shoulders (and co-raise a teenage kid) while still maintaining a dry sense of humor and a cool facade. Tony has had the most consistent, compelling character arc in the MCU and surely one of the major reasons for that is that RDJ cares so much about him and goes to bat for the integrity of the character.
wOW rdj talking about tony and steve is SUCH A WILD RIDE like one second it’s “for me i just think about obadiah’s deception” and then “i don’t know what i’m gonna do when chris is not cap anymore” and “mY FIRST INSTINCT WOULD BE TO BUST STEVE’S JAW PROBABLY” and “STEVE JUST HAS THE TRUEST MORAL PSYCHOLOGY” “but can tony really in good conscience pick up that phone to call steve” “LOVE YOU CAP” oh my god that is why rdj and chris evans could literally have like, cardboard, actual literal cardboard for scripted lines and the chemistry between them would still flow RDJ LIKES CHRIS SO MUCH AND TONY AND STEVE ARE SO INTENSE AND EXPLOSIVE i’m gonna cry
robert downey jr honest to fucking god deserves an oscar for that IM1 final press conference scene. for acting like he’s tony stark while tony stark is acting like hes not fucking DYING to be a superhero
i’ve said this before but the thing about playing tony stark is that it’s damn acting inception. dude it’s not about acting like he’s feeling a thing. it’s not even just about acting as if he’s feeling a thing while pretending he’s NOT feeling a thing. this guy has to 1) act like he’s feeling a thing while 2) pretending not to be feeling that thing but also 3) SUBTLY FAILING at pretending not to be feeling that thing. CONSTANTLY
because tony stark is not cold and unemotional or cooly detached, he just pretends to be when it’s convenient, fails in very specific ways (as in, he fails enough for that to be noticed by very few but missed by most), or he’s otherwise playing at a quasi impossible balance between facade and emotional genuineness, like he’s an open book with a page he very neatly torn off jfc do you UNDERSTAND how intense this must be to act and successfully convey to an audience without using any explicit DESCRIPTIVE WORDING i’m pulling all my face muscles just thinking about this
like!!!! this is the reason why iron man comic narrative relied so much on super dramatic third-person narration boxes because he was lying and/or hiding so much of the time and robert downey jr has the unbelievable task of giving us this conflict not only in movies that revolve around his character but also in ensemble movies and movies that take an external perspective on him and he’s not allowed constant voiceovers and solo backstage scenes my goD if rdj doesn’t get more recognition for this role then the entire industry is uh FAKE
Y’all have internet and yet can’t even bother to look shit up before sending me dumbass asks? Lmao.
If you took your head out of ass and probably read more than what anti tony/rdj blogs throw your way you would know that Robert is /not/ a republican and he cleared that up in a interview during age of Ultron press tour. You also would know Robert joined a campaign with a bunch of other famous people in a pro-Hillary video.
The feminist thing was clickbait headline made by a boring reporter that put Robert’s quote about superheroes being made-believe and add feminism to it. That was also cleared up by someone who was present during it.
Y’all have Google and yet I have to wake up to find dumbass asks like that in inbox, but then again you’re sending it in Anon which already tells me a lot.
I think my “favorite” is the people who claim RDJ has been voting Republican for yeeeeears.
Dude. RDJ’s is a convicted felon. He was literally disenfranchised from 1996-2015 when he was granted a full pardon and thus *able to vote again*.
“True story: His Name is Robert Downey Jr.” by Dana Reinhardt
I’m willing to go out on a limb here and guess that most stories of kindness do not begin with drug addicted celebrity bad boys.
Mine does.
His name is Robert Downey Jr.
You’ve probably heard of him. You may or may not be a fan, but I am, and I was in the early 90’s when this story takes place.
It was at a garden party for the ACLU of Southern California. My stepmother was the executive director, which is why I was in attendance without having to pay the $150 fee. It’s not that I don’t support the ACLU, it’s that I was barely twenty and had no money to speak of.
I was escorting my grandmother. There isn’t enough room in this essay to explain to you everything she was, I would need volumes, so for the sake of brevity I will tell you that she was beautiful even in her eighties, vain as the day is long, and whip smart, though her particular sort of intelligence did not encompass recognizing young celebrities.
I pointed out Robert Downey Jr. to her when he arrived, in a gorgeous cream-colored linen suit, with Sarah Jessica Parker on his arm. My grandmother shrugged, far more interested in piling her paper plate with various unidentifiable cheeses cut into cubes. He wasn’t Carey Grant or Gregory Peck. What did she care?
The afternoon’s main honoree was Ron Kovic, whose story of his time in the Vietnam War that had left him confined to a wheelchair had recently been immortalized in the Oliver Stone film Born on the Fourth of July.
I mention the wheelchair because it played an unwitting role in what happened next.
We made our way to our folding chairs in the garden with our paper plates and cubed cheeses and we watched my stepmother give one of her eloquent speeches and a plea for donations, and there must have been a few other people who spoke but I can’t remember who, and then Ron Kovic took the podium, and he was mesmerizing, and when it was all over we stood up to leave, and my grandmother tripped.
We’d been sitting in the front row (nepotism has its privileges) and when she tripped she fell smack into the wheelchair ramp that provided Ron Kovic with access to the stage. I didn’t know that wheelchair ramps have sharp edges, but they do, at least this one did, and it sliced her shin right open.
The volume of blood was staggering.
I’d like to be able to tell you that I raced into action; that I quickly took control of the situation, tending to my grandmother and calling for the ambulance that was so obviously needed, but I didn’t. I sat down and put my head between my knees because I thought I was going to faint. Did I mention the blood?
Luckily, somebody did take control of the situation, and that person was Robert Downey Jr.
He ordered someone to call an ambulance. Another to bring a glass of water. Another to fetch a blanket. He took off his gorgeous linen jacket and he rolled up his sleeves and he grabbed hold of my grandmother’s leg, and then he took that jacket that I’d assumed he’d taken off only to it keep out of the way, and he tied it around her wound. I watched the cream colored linen turn scarlet with her blood.
He told her not to worry. He told her it would be alright. He knew, instinctively, how to speak to her, how to distract her, how to play to her vanity. He held onto her calf and he whistled. He told her how stunning her legs were.
She said to him, to my humiliation: “My granddaughter tells me you’re a famous actor but I’ve never heard of you.”
He stayed with her until the ambulance came and then he walked alongside the stretcher holding her hand and telling her she was breaking his heart by leaving the party so early, just as they were getting to know each other. He waved to her as they closed the doors. “Don’t forget to call me, Silvia,” he said. “We’ll do lunch.”
He was a movie star, after all.
Believe it or not, I hurried into the ambulance without saying a word. I was too embarrassed and too shy to thank him.
We all have things we wish we’d said. Moments we’d like to return to and do differently. Rarely do we get that chance to make up for those times that words failed us. But I did. Many years later.
I should mention here that when Robert Downey Jr. was in prison for being a drug addict (which strikes me as absurd and cruel, but that’s the topic for a different essay), I thought of writing to him. Of reminding him of that day when he was humanity personified. When he was the best of what we each can be. When he was the kindest of strangers.
But I didn’t.
Some fifteen years after that garden party, ten years after my grandmother had died and five since he’d been released from prison, I saw him in a restaurant.
I grew up in Los Angeles where celebrity sightings are commonplace and where I was raised to respect people’s privacy and never bother someone while they’re out having a meal, but on this day I decided to abandon the code of the native Angeleno, and my own shyness, and I approached his table.
I said to him, “I don’t have any idea if you remember this…” and I told him the story.
He remembered.
“I just wanted to thank you,” I said. “And I wanted to tell you that it was simply the kindest act I’ve ever witnessed.”
He stood up and he took both of my hands in his and he looked into my eyes and he said, “You have absolutely no idea how much I needed to hear that today.”
Did I fucking ask to start crying tonight. No. No I did not.
Loki is the Philosopher King 