Robert Downey Jr. Reflects on Playing Iron Man and Makes it Clear That, "I Am Not What I Did With That Studio"

Now that Robert Downey Jr. is finished with Marvel, it seems like he is ready to move on with his life and career and in a way distance himself from the role of Tony Stark, which launched his acting career into a whole new stratosphere.

One of the things that he wants people to know is that he is not his work, he explained, “I am not what I did with that studio. Here’s what he told THR in an interview:

"Initially, 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, being creative and getting into all these other partnerships, it was a time when … what do they say? Owners start looking like their pets.”

He did not want to let that happen, so he honed in on a process called aesthetic distance and explains:

"I am not my work. I am not what I did with that studio. I am not that period of time that I spent playing this character. And it sucks, because the kid in all of us wants to be like, 'No. It's always going to be summer camp and we're all holding hands and singing 'Kumbaya'."

Of course the actor did enjoy his time playing the character and as you might image, he also enjoyed the huge amounts of money that he made from those movies!

"There's always a dependency on something that feels like a sure thing. It's the closest I will ever come to being a trust fund kid.”

I seriously doubt that Downey Jr. will ever be in a position where he worries about money. The guy is a talented actor that is never going to have issues finding work again. He’s got a Sherlock Holmes 3 in the works along with a reboot of Doctor Dolittle, but he has yet to fully explore what his post-Marvel life and career could be. He knows that he needs to start doing that soon, though.

"I have not been forced to explore the new frontier of what is my creative and personal life after this. It's always good to get ahead of where you are about to be. If you put eyes on 'that's going to be a big turn down there, spring of '19,' I better start psychically getting on top of that. … It's always in the transitions between one phase and the next phase that people fall apart."

I’ll be looking forward to seeing what projects that Downey Jr. ends up taking on in the future, beyond what we already know is coming.