Robert Downey Jr. Tells Joe Rogan What It Would Take to Return as Iron Man

Last week, after the Golden Globes, Robert Downey Jr. appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience to discuss his upcoming roles, the last several years of his already wild career, and, of course, Iron Man.

“Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, which is, I think, in some ways, the best film I’ve ever done, wound up being a calling card,” Downey Jr. began. “It came out and it bombed, but Jon Favreau saw it and he said, ‘this guy can do an action movie.’ And so it wound up being my calling card into the Marvel universe.”

Make no mistake: Robert Downey Jr. made the Marvel universe possible. Favreau’s decision to bring Downey Jr. on board for the first Iron Man in 2008 was risky—RDJ was then the prototypical image of wild celebrity—but that’s what the new generation of superhero cinema would be: wild, risky and celebrity-packed. (Even if now it might seem tried and tested and perhaps a bit unambitious to some.) Downey Jr.’s Iron Man—and the subsequent success of the film—quite literally made the next ten years of Marvel possible. Had Iron Man flopped, had no one cared for what was then a C-list superhero, it’s possible the hero universe would have imploded and died right then and there.

Ten years and billions of dollars later, the MCU is only expanding. Though, it has closed one door, and on the character who made it possible: in Avengers: Endgame, Tony Stark, Iron Man, spoke his final lines. We think.

“Well let me ask you a question: If I picked the jersey up and put it back on, wouldn’t you feel a little bit like, oh crap?” Downey Jr. asked Rogan in response to his possible return. While many fans would still probably erupt in theaters worldwide to the sight of Downey Jr. reprising the role, the actor himself remains unconvinced, and says the thought of him returning seems baked into America’s backward values about work. “Our culture never encourages taking a break, never encourages saying ‘don’t chase that thing,’” the actor explains. “Giving yourself permission to not have to jump, strike when the iron’s hot, all that stuff—and maybe it’s just a bit of an anxiety to the times.”

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Still, when Rogan began talking about the inability of boxers to appropriately time their retirement (instead, they get old and pummeled in the ring)—they “chase the dragon”— Downey Jr. grinned and told Rogan he was making an argument both for and against his return as Iron Man. RDJ, even after all his maturity, can’t see himself backing down forever. But for now, he says, he’s done.

“To me, starting up again [as Iron Man] is off the table. I feel I’ve done all I could with that character. There would have to be a super compelling argument and a series of events that made it obvious to do it. But the other thing is: I want to do other stuff!”

“To me, starting up again [as Iron Man] is off the table. I feel I’ve done all I could with that character.”

The actor did admit that the MCU likes to keep viewers on their toes.

“The real genius of the Marvel creative team and the Russo brothers is that they love writing themselves into a corner. Because then it activates all those ‘how do we get out of purgatory juices?’ and then you get the next great idea.”

How to resurrect Iron Man might be a corner Downey Jr. doesn’t want to escape from. At least for the time being.

For now, he says he’s excited for the future of superhero movies. “I want to see what Pattinson does [with Batman],” he says. “I like that guy.”

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