The reason why George Clooney replaced Robert Downey Jr in ‘Gravity’
During the first half of the 2010s, it seems as if there was a significant movement towards space-faring science fiction movies, with the likes of The Martian, Interstellar and Gravity making big waves on planet Earth. The latter film, starring George Clooney and Sandra Bullock, was a huge success and won seven awards at the Oscars, including ‘Best Director’ and ‘Best Cinematography’.
Alfonso Cuaron’s 2013 sci-fi thriller sees Clooney and Bullock play two astronauts who attempt to make their way back to Earth after their spaceship is destroyed in orbit. Gravity is one of the most tense films of the 2010s and is well deserving of the acclaim that came its way.
Interestingly, it wasn’t always Clooney and Bullock who were attached to the project. Instead, both Robert Downey Jr and Angelina Jolie had been pencilled in to feature in the lead roles, but eventually, things did not go well on set, particularly for Downey Jr, at which point Clooney was called in to replace him.
Cuaron once told The Hollywood Reporter the reason why Clooney ended up taking on the role instead of Downey Jr and noted how the technological aspects of the film looked to be an issue for the latter. “It became clear that, as we started to nail the technology, or narrow the technology, that was going to be a big obstacle for (Downey Jr’s) performance,” the director said.
He added: “I think Robert is fantastic if you give him the freedom to completely breathe and improvise and change stuff. [But] we tried one of these technologies, and it was not compatible. After that, we [had a] week that we pretended as if nothing was happening, and then we talked and said, ‘This is not going to work. This is tough’.”
The technology looked to be incredibly claustrophobic, which perhaps proved to be too much for Downey Jr, and Clooney had been aware of the production and wanted to help in any way he could. When appearing on the radio with Howard Stern, Downey Jr also opened up on his departure from the movie.
“Everybody winds up doing what they are supposed to do,” he said. “Sometimes someone gets in a motorcycle accident, and someone else ends up doing the part, and you say, ‘I couldn’t have imagined anyone else there’. I came on early in the development; Angelina wasn’t even attached to it then.”
The real problem, as Cuaron noted, was that Downey Jr was expected to use complicated technology to make the film, and it just wasn’t something he was comfortable with. “Alfonso and on really got on, but I went to do a test with a new sort of multi-spherical camera for how they were going to do the CGI,” the actor said, “and I’m one of those guys who can be comfortably uncomfortable pretty easily.”
Downey Jr signed off on the matter, stating: “I went in in the morning to do it, went in for about 20 minutes and said, ‘This is crazy, how much longer is this?’ They said, ‘Another four or five hours?’ I said, ‘No, it isn’t.’ You have to have boundaries. Leave before you flip out.”
