Robert Downey Jr. is looking forward to exploring new opportunities now he’s finished playing Iron Man.
The 54-year-old first portrayed Tony Stark in 2008’s Iron Man and reprised the role a number of times over the next 11 years, up until this year’s Avengers: Endgame, during which the billionaire-turned-superhero sacrifices himself to defeat the evil Thanos and his army.
In an interview with Off Camera with Sam Jones, Downey Jr. reflected on the next phase of his career and said he was looking forward to doing something different.
“I had an incredible 10-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,” he said.
“By creating and associating and synergizing with Tony Stark and the Marvel Universe… and being a good company man but also being a little off kilter and being creative and then getting into all these other partnerships, it was a time when it’s like… owners start looking like their pets… 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.”
