Marvel Studios
After spending over a decade predominantly playing Tony Stark/Iron Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Robert Downey Jr. worried it had negatively impacted his acting skills.
In a recent piece published in The New York Times, Downey Jr. — who will next be seen starring in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer — admitted that he had concerns that his world-class acting skills had “atrophied” during his decade-plus in the MCU.
“You start to wonder if a muscle you have hasn’t atrophied,” Downey Jr. said in a recent interview with The New York Times prior to the release of Oppenheimer.
Director Christopher Nolan certainly wasn’t worried about the caliber of Downey Jr’s performing skills, however, as The Dark Knight and Interstellar called the 58-year-old “one of our great actors” during a recent profile interview with The Los Angeles Times.
“He’s one of our great actors, and though a generation of kids know what a great movie star he is, they’ve not seen his subtlety and brilliance,” Nolan said.
“I wanted to get him to do something completely different, to lose himself in another human being. When was the last time we’ve seen that? Chaplin? Directors are very aware of how talented Downey is, but because of his incredible energy that can punch through the screen, finding the right thing for him is difficult.”
In addition to Downey Jr., who portrays former U.S. Atomic Energy Commission chairman Lewis Strauss, Oppenheimer also stars Cillian Murphy in the titular role and an ensemble cast that includes the likes of Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, Josh Hartnett, Casey Affleck, Rami Malek, Benny Safdie, Kenneth Branagh, Jack Quaid, Josh Peck, Alden Ehrenreich, Jason Clarke, Matthew Modine, Dane DeHaan, David Krumhooltz, David Dastmalchian, and more.
Oppenheimer will hit movie theaters across the United States on Friday, July 21, which is famously the same day that Greta Gerwig’s Barbie releases.