Robert Downey Jr.perfects his craft on-screen. The emblematic star of the Marvel Cinematic Universe takes on every acting challenge possible in Hollywood. And while he is currently enjoying the success ofhis portrayal as Lewis Strauss in Christopher Nolan’sOppenheimer, the actor reminisced about a time on the set of David Fincher’s filmZodiac(2007). And it turns out the crew was pushed to their limits when the director shot one particular scene with RDJ upwards of 50 times.
Robert Downey Jr. said in an interview withVanity Fair:
It doesn’t matter because the craft of trying to get things done — like there was a scene where he was trying to get it done in one shot. And we had to have done 40 or 50 takes. And people were a little bit exasperated.
Downey Jr. continued:
He said, ‘Downey, come here. Do we have it yet?’ And I watched the takes and at the end of it I said, ‘You want to use this in one?’ He goes, ‘Yeah, Downey’s right, we don’t have it yet. Delete all 40 of those takes, and we’ll start again after lunch.’ And everyone looked at me [and] they’re like, ‘What the f— is wrong…’ But, you know, right is right.
Fincher’s neo-noir mystery came out one year prior to Robert Downey Jr.’s first portrayal of Tony Stark inIron Man(2008). Coincidentally,Zodiacis chalked full of Marvel alumnus, including the MCU’S very own Hulk, Mark Ruffalo. Jake Gyllenhaal (Spider-Man: Far From Home), Brian Cox (X2: X-Men United) and Dermot Mulroney (Secret Invasion) also star.
Related:Robert Downey Jr.’s 20 Best Movies, Ranked by Rotten Tomatoes
Exasperated or Not, the Show Went On
The crew ofZodiacmay have been a little put out with Robert Downey Jr. and the director’s desire to shoot the aforementioned scene in the movie within the confines of a single shot. But it all comes down to RDJ’s desire to capture the desired moment on film for his respective director. And the twoZodiaccolleagues went to great lengths to perfect the movie mystery.
Downey Jr. said in the same interview with Vanity Fair:
Working with David Fincher, you will learn that you’re more durable than you thought. A scene can devolve into where it just feels really perfunctory, and you’re kind of almost on an ‘automatonic’ mode.
Downey Jr. portrayed the role of real-life journalist Paul Avery inZodiac. During a television interview with KRON-TV, Avery discussed a threat he’d received from the killer prior to Halloween in 1970 that read: “Peek-a-boo! You are doomed" (per theBay Area Television Archive). At the time of the broadcast, Avery believed the Zodiac was only responsible for the deaths of five people rather than the 14 he/she had bragged about. Avery did die in December of 2000 from emphysema, so the authentic Zodiac killer had nothing to do with the reporter’s demise.
