so the olympics is going on and all that and a few nights ago, south korean skeleton racer 윤성빈 (yun sung-bin) won gold, and he had an iron man helmet which is honestly such a mood:
and i was expecting some coverage on what the story is behind this guy’s helmet but nbc said he was just a fan *boooring* so i did some research on my own, and sure enough, and honestly the story went above and beyond what i was expecting.
“2014년 윤성빈선수가 어깨 부상으로 인해 서울에 있을때 이야기입니다.
마블덕후인 윤성빈선수는 그때 당시에는 아이언맨이 아닌 캡틴아메리카 헬멧을 쓰고 경기에 임했다고 합니다.
에이지 오브 울트론 촬영으로 어벤져스 팀이 서울에 촬영을 왔을때 크리스 에반스（캡틴 아메리카）와 만나고 싶어서 지인의 도움으로 촬영장에 방문하게 됐는데 촬영을 마치고 크리스 에반스에게 인사하러 갔지만 컨디션의 문제로 만남을 거부했다고 합니다.
그때 마침 로버트 다우 주니어（아이언맨）가 그 광경을 보고 윤성빈 선수에게 먼저 다가가서 팔의 깁스에 대해서 물어봤고 윤성빈 선수는 스켈레톤 선수이고 어깨부상때문에 깁스를 하고있다고 설명해줬습니다. 그러고 나서 윤성빈선수가 로버트 다우 주니어에게 싸인을 요청했는데 로버트 다우주니어는 잠시만 기다려 보라고 한다음에 펜을 들고오더니 윤성빈선수 팔에 싸인을 해주겠다고 했답니다.
윤성빈선수가 허락하자 펜으로 깁스에 무언갈 그리더니 깁스를 아이언맨의 팔처럼 꾸며주었다고 합니다. 그러면서 팔 빨리 나아서 스켈레톤 경기에서 아이언맨 처럼 멋지게 질주해달라고 응원했다고 합니다.
그에 감동받은 윤성빈 선수는 로버트 다우 주니어의 팬이 됐고 그때부터 캡틴아메리카 헬멧대신 아이언맨 헬멧을 쓰기 시작했다고 합니다.“
and heeeere’s my translation (since google translate messes everything up):
This story occured in 2014 when athlete Yun Sung-Bin was in Seoul because of his shoulder injury.
Marvel fan Yun Sung-Bin, at the time, did not have an Iron Man helmet, but instead, competed in his Captain America helmet.
When Yun heard that the cast of Avengers were in Seoul to shoot for Avengers: Age of Ultron, he wanted to meet Chris Evans (Captain America). With the help of a friend, he got the opportunity to visit the filming location and went to say hello to Chris but unfortunately, Chris refused to meet him because he wasn’t feeling well.
Robert Downey Jr. saw this and approached Yun, asking him about the cast on his arm, and Yun explained that he was a skeleton racer and had hurt his shoulder. He then proceeded to ask Rob for an autograph. Rob told him to wait, and returned with a pen and offered to sign his arm (cast).
When Yun agreed, Rob began to draw something on his cast, and when he was finished, he had turned the cast into an Iron Man arm. He then told Yun he wishes for him to heal quickly and compete in his skeleton race as fast as Iron Man.
From that point on, Yun Sung-Bin became a Robert Downey Jr. fan and from then on, began to wear an Iron Man helmet instead of Captain America’s.
and look where he is now! olympic gold with a 1.63 second lead on the silver-medalist!!
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 