Robert Downey Jr. has had enough of the excessive attitude of Elon Musk, the billionaire who was one of the sources of inspiration for the creation of his version of Tony Stark in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This is why the actor asked him to control himself a little, without wanting to disrespect him.
The Oscar winner for Oppenheimer commented on this point when asked during his appearance on the On With Kara Swisher podcast what he thought about the billionaire seemingly spending his life wanting to be a real-life version of his Iron Man. “I only met him a few times. I just wish he would control his behavior a little more. This idea that 'everything is fine because we have to go to Mars' doesn't really suit me“, assured the one who helped Tom Holland enormously during his first scene as Spider-Man.
“Separating the individual from his behavior is a difficult thing“
“You have to look at everything Elon has done to demonstrate his worth. Today, separating the individual from his or her behavior is a difficult thing to do, because hell is other people – and that hell has been hijacked in the information age to divide us rather than allow speech, debate and dialogue“, he added.
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To understand the relationship between Elon Musk and Robert Downey Jr., we have to go back to the release ofIron Man in 2008, one of whose screenwriters, Mark Fergus, later described Tony Stark in Intelligencer as a cross between “Elon Musk, Donald Trump before he became president and maybe a little Steve Jobs“.
Additionally, director Jon Favreau said in 2016 that Elon Musk was a good friend of Marvel and revealed on the Recode Decode podcast a request from Robert Downey Jr. while they were working on the film: “When we were preparing for Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr. told us that there was someone we should sit down and talk to, and that he could give us an idea of what it would really be like to be Tony Stark“.
Perhaps the key is that Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark managed to redeem himself from his excesses and become Marvel's great hero in Avengers : Endgamewhereas with Elon Musk you don't expect something like this to ever happen.
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Musk's cameo in Iron Man 2in which he invited himself thanks to his friendship with Favreau, will be remembered for a long time. If you don't remember the moment, we'll refresh your memory. In the scene, Tony Stark congratulates him on the Merlin engines, while Musk tells him he has an idea for an electric jet and Downey Jr.'s character promises to make it work. The full scene is available in the video at the top of the article.
Article written in collaboration with our colleagues from Xataka.