Christopher Nolan Pushed Robert Downey Jr. To Avoid His Acting Trademarks For Oppenheimer

In Christopher Nolan's new film "Oppenheimer," Robert Downey, Jr. plays Lewis Strauss, a former United States Secretary of Commerce who also served as the chairman of the country's Atomic Energy Commission from 1953 to 1958. Strauss was a divisive figure, and some scholars have posited that Strauss rewrote certain records of America's nuclear development to highlight his own heroism. Seeing that Downey is playing the role, one might naturally assume that Strauss is going to be depicted as energetic, talkative, and charming. Downey, while having played a wide variety of roles, seems to stand out when he's allowed to be dazzling, witty, and intelligent. One might say they are the actor's calling cards. 

It seems, however, that Nolan wanted Downey to act specifically against type to play Strauss. Downey, as he revealed in a recent interview with the New York Times Magazine, was somewhat relieved. No one more than Downey is aware of his public image as an actor. He knows that playing the role of Iron Man in multiple Marvel Cinematic Universe movies cemented him as a wry quipster in the eye of the moviegoing public. Both Downey and his fans know that he is capable of much more than just Iron Man. The actor even admits being a little afraid that he might have lost a lot of his mojo, as the bulk of his work for the better part of a decade was almost exclusively the MCU (from 2012 to 2019 the only non-MCU film he starred in was the Oscar-bait dud "The Judge"). 

Of course, in working with Nolan, Downey knew he would have to stretch and reach into talents and acting techniques he hadn't touched in quite some time. It was a relief to do something new and challenging, but it was, well, challenging. 

Downey recalls that Nolan, also aware of his actor's recent streak of MCU movies with Kevin Feige, encouraged him to "work those other muscles." Indeed, Nolan wanted Downey to stay away from anything he may be known for, or, as Downey described the director saying, "Let's do it while rendering you devoid of your usual go-to things."

Those go-to things? Downey knew what that meant: 

"It's the fast-talking, charming, unpredictable, blah, blah, blah, or as my very close friend Josh Richman, a character actor, used to say, I made my bones playing 'Milo, the offbeat buddy.' And Milo, the offbeat buddy, better be offbeat!"

Downey has never played a character named Milo, but one can take his meaning. Downey, instead, fell back on an example from his own family. It seems Downey's grandfather was the same age as Strauss, and he tapped into that image to play his part. He said: 

"In doing a bunch of research on Strauss, I connected it to my own grandfather, who would have been a contemporary of his. Robert Elias, whom I never met, was in the U.S. Army, self-made guy. There's a cool simile between something he was involved in and how Strauss probably felt about Oppenheimer. This grandfather helped do the glass for the Chrysler Building, and the Chrysler and the Empire State were vying to be the biggest. So I was thinking, how can I make Strauss's competitiveness with Oppenheimer personal?"

A competitive 1950s architect was, some actors might call it, Downey's key. Once he tapped into that, the resentment of competition between Strauss and Oppenheimer came easily. 

Downey (pictured on the right above) continued, imagining the tone of the rivalry between his grandfather and the workers on an even taller building across town. Everyone, Downey feels, can relate to that kind of inner competition. Downey also noticed that Strauss bloody-minded dedication to his job was something he felt professionally, implying that it connected to the actor's well-publicized struggles with addiction and his road to recovery. He said: 

"'Look at that building over there that's no better than mine getting all the shine!' I don't think there's another human being alive that can't admit to having fallen into the vagaries of comparison. I also relate to, for reasons in a part of my life that I don't discuss with press — the recovery stuff — the amount of service that was involved in Strauss's life and the dedication to an ideal. There's always going to be variances in opinion, but I had an easy time making a case for why this individual was right."

Nolan's films mostly tend to be about the male ego, and the obsessions that alternately fuel their vanity, or consume them to the neglect of all other things; "steely determination" seems to be Nolan's most repeated emotional beat. Downey has displayed plenty of steely determination playing a superhero, but this seems to be of a completely different variety. One can't wait to see Downey display some of his range again.