10 Brilliant Tweaks That Suddenly Made Actors Cool As F***

2. Robert Downey Jr. Embraced His Motormouth Persona

Few actors have enjoyed as stratospheric a career turnaround as Robert Downey Jr., whose early career success was stopped in its tracks by a period of substance abuse and legal troubles in the mid-1990s through to the early 2000s.

After losing a lucrative gig on Ally McBeal in 2002 and hitting rock bottom, Downey began to crawl his way back by embracing the very trait that's now most associated with him - running his damn mouth and never stopping.

It really began in earnest when Downey starred in 2005's neo-noir comedy Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, penned by Hollywood's go-to writer for snappy, pithy dialogue - Shane Black.

He followed this up with memorably loquacious performances in A Scanner Darkly and Zodiac, before delivering the Omega Version of it as Tony Stark in Iron Man.

Given that much of the original Iron Man was improvised due to shooting without a finished script, Downey deserves much of the credit for not only popularising Tony Stark as a quick wit, but solidifying what would become the Marvel Cinematic Universe's house style of comedy - barbed quips fired off rat-a-tat.

Iron Man cemented the actor's career resurrection and made him the face of the MCU for over a decade, while even his few subsequent roles outside of the superhero franchise - such as most recently in Oppenheimer - have similarly banked on his penchant for fast-talking.