‘Ready, fire, aim’: Robert Downey Jnr on life after Marvel and why Dolittle role appealed to him
- Tony Stark/Iron Man was killed off in Avengers: Endgame, freeing Downey Jnr to take on new roles
- His new movie, Dolittle, based on the classic children’s book, is a leap into the unknown, and it won’t be the only one as he seeks to challenge himself
“I’ve had several careers,” Robert Downey Jnr says one early January afternoon, sitting beside his producing partner and wife, Susan, in a cavernous sound stage on the Universal Studios backlot in Los Angeles.
“There was one career where I was happy to be working. Then there was one where I was so happy to be able to be working again. And now there’s one where I’m working – and it’s working.”
Robert and Susan Downey have been together through much of that journey – through rough times, good times and ridiculously amazing times – from the period when Robert was struggling to regain his footing after years of substance abuse and multiple stints in rehab and jail through his stunning comeback as Tony Stark in 2008’s Iron Man, the first in what would become a string of Marvel Comics superhero blockbusters.
Now the two, who have been married since 2005 and co-founded the production company Team Downey in 2010, are embarking on a new chapter. Having concluded his bazillion-dollar-grossing run as Iron Man in last summer’s juggernaut Avengers: Endgame , Downey, 54, finds himself looking ahead to life after Marvel.
When you’ve already ticked off nearly every box imaginable for a Hollywood actor – promising wunderkind, Saturday Night Live cast member, tabloid fodder, industry pariah, two-time Oscar nominee, global superstar – what worlds are left to conquer?