Robert Downey Jr.’s outstanding performance of naval officer Lewis Strauss in Oppenheimer has received praise from all quarters. Until 2019, the actor was best known for playing Tony Stark in a series of Iron Man, Avengers and Spider-Man franchise movies and his fans were pleasantly surprised to witness him play a completely new role in Christopher Nolan’s latest film.
The actor recently told Vanity Fair about some pivotal moments he experienced while filming Iron Man for the first time with Jon Favreau.
RDJ revealed how they were desperate for success following a lean period marked by flop films and how while filming a weapons-testing scene, they almost made up the dialogues scene by scene, leaving no time to memorize lines.
Wearing sunglasses and reading cue cards to deliver his lines seemed like the perfect solution and that’s exactly what Robert Downey Jr did. Memories of those iconic improvised dialogues in which Iron Man asks his audience if it is better to be ‘feared or respected’ or if it is too much to ‘hope for both’ stayed with him long after the scenes were shot.