‘Iron Man’ Robert Downey Jr admits he was concerned about the effect Marvel movies were having on his acting skills

The actor was also asked about the impact that the MCU has had on the industry in general, and whether there’s any merit in suggesting that Marvel ‘ate Hollywood filmmaking’. He said, “If you’re talking about, adjusted for inflation, the biggest movies of all time, Gone With the Wind and The Ten Commandments are there. I’m sure that in the years those movies came out, there were probably films that you and I would agree were a better representation of what cinema can be.”

He admitted that he didn’t have the luxury of wondering about these things when the MCU began, and said that he grew up in a family that despised ‘summer blockbusters’. He added, “I’m happy that I regained my connection with a more purist approach to making movies.”

RDJ said that money no longer plays a role in helping him decide what to do. He said that the ‘money-prestige illusion’ dissolved very soon after the first Iron Man movie defied the odds and emerged as a blockbuster film. He would go on to become the world’s highest-paid movie star towards the latter part of his MCU tenure. After Oppenheimer, RDJ is set to play several roles in an HBO adaptation of The Sympathizer.