Robert Downey Jr picks the best movie of his career: “It wound up being a calling card” 
One of the most commercially successful actors in recent history, Robert Downey Jr rose to worldwide prominence as the iconic Marvel superhero Iron Man. But his history is littered with far darker moments that he had to overcome. A pained artist for much of his career, it would take the star-studded superhero role to get Downey Jr’s name firmly up in light without a hint of Hollywood’s omnipotent caretaker ever hinting that they’ll come back down.
Despite having appeared in various other projects like David Fincher’s gripping thriller Zodiac and Ben Stiller’s satirical gem Tropic Thunder, it was his long-running job of portraying Iron Man that received global attention as well as adoration from millions of fans. And while for a younger Downey Jr, the idea of starring in such a movie would have made him spit out his whiskey soda, there is some joy to be found in his portrayal, even if it is drenched in dollar bills and commercially viable catchphrases.
“I had an incredible ten-year run that was creatively satisfying. It was very, very, very hard work and I dug very deep, but I have not been forced to explore the new frontier of what is my creative and personal life after this,” Robert Downey Jr said when he was asked about his thoughts on leaving the monumental franchise. “Occasionally, you would pull back from it and go, ‘Let me stop, let me get off the teat of this archetype and let me see where I stand.’ And you can feel really buffeted, you can get really spun out by it.”
“First thing you learn in theatre arts: Aesthetic distance. I am not this play I’m doing. I’m not a character in The Fantasticks. I’m not Will from Oklahoma. Aesthetic distance. It’s job one. I’m not my work. I’m not what I did with that studio,” he explained in a plea to casting directors across the world. “I’m not that period of time that I spent playing this character,” but while some would like to distance themselves from such a role to preserve some perceived artistic integrity, for Downey Jr, being Iron Man was always a dream come true: “And it sucks because the kid in all of us wants to be like, ‘No! It’s always gonna be summer camp and we’re all holding hands and singing kumbaya. Isn’t it?’ It’s like, ‘no! Snap out of it.'”
However, no matter how much fun he had to portray Tony Stark, Downey Jr does not consider his extremely successful involvement with Marvel as the pinnacle of his career. Dollar bills in the bank are certainly a healthy way to judge your best movie, but there is another picture that speaks to the actor on a more artistic level. Instead, he attributes that particular title to a completely unexpected addition to his extensive and widely celebrated filmography. According to the actor, this was his breakthrough film, which landed him a part in Marvel’s project.
Downey Jr surprised everyone by citing his participation in Shane Black’s 2005 debut feature Kiss Kiss Bang Bang as the pivotal moment in the trajectory of his career. In the film, he stars as a thief who successfully manages to enter the notoriously exclusive world of Hollywood by masquerading actual guilt as method acting.
In an interview, the actor maintained that he would never have reached new heights without Black’s comedy: “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, which is, I think, in some ways the best film I’ve ever done. It wound up being a calling card. It came out, and it bombed, but Jon Favreau saw it, and he said, ‘This guy could do an action movie.’ And so that wound up being my calling card into the Marvel Universe.”
Of course, these comments came before the actor’s Academy Award-winning role as Lewis Strauss in Oppenheimer. Picking up the ‘Best Supporting Actor’ gong might well have changed his mind, but, for now, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang remains the ultimate movie in Robert Downey Jr’s canon.
