A few weeks ago, Robert Downey Jr. made news when he disclosed that he had initially contacted Christopher Nolan, the filmmaker of “Oppenheimer,” in the early 2000s in hopes of landing a role as the antagonist Scarecrow in the latter’s 2005 superhero blockbuster “Batman Begins.” Nolan completely acknowledged to Downey in his most recent New York Times interview that he wasn’t too invested in recruiting him.
“I knew you weren’t the guy [for Scarecrow],” stated Nolan, who ultimately selected Cillian Murphy, the star of “Oppenheimer,” to play the antagonist in Batman. “In my head that was already cast. But I always wanted to meet you … I was a huge admirer of yours and therefore selfishly just wanted to take the meeting. But I was also a little afraid of you, you know. I had heard all kinds of stories about how you were crazy. It was only a few years after the last of those stories that had come out about you.”
After a string of legal issues at the beginning of the century, Downey’s career was revived when he met Nolan well in advance of Marvel casting him as Iron Man. The actor was placed on three years of parole after being caught in 1996 for having heroin, cocaine, and an empty gun. A year later, he was imprisoned for over four months after he neglected to appear for a court-mandated drug test. In 1999, he failed an additional exam and received a prison term of three years. After serving fifteen months, Downey was caught once more for narcotics possession four months following his release from prison. Due to his legal background, Downey was difficult to convince Marvel to cast him in the pivotal role of Tony Stark. Although David Maisel, the previous president of Marvel Studios, had him as his top choice, “my board thought I was crazy to put the future of the company in the hands of an addict.”
Downey “playing Iron Man is one of the most consequential casting decisions that’s ever been made in the history of the movie business,” according to a statement made by Nolan on “The Late Show” earlier this month. He reiterated this viewpoint in his interview with The New York Times. When questioned how he overcame his early concerns about Downey, Nolan replied, “The truth is, I think Jon Favreau casting Robert as Tony Stark is one of the most significant and consequential casting decisions in Hollywood history. It wound up defining our industry.” He further added, “Coming out of COVID, you say, ‘Thank God for Marvel movies.’ And it’s one of those where, in retrospect, everybody thinks it was obvious. But he took an enormous risk casting [Robert] in that role.”
Regarding casting Downey, Nolan remarked, “You’re always looking to work with great actors, but you’re also looking to catch them in a moment in their lives and careers where you’ve got something to offer them that they haven’t done before, or haven’t done in a long time. I just really wanted to see this incredible movie star put down all of that baggage, that charisma, and just lose himself in a dramatic portrayal of a very complicated man. I always wanted to work with him, really. Once I stopped being afraid of him.”