10 Genius Ways Directors Got The Actor They Wanted

Returning to the wonders of a well-made screen test now, and to that time Marvel Studios weren't exactly entirely convinced about a burgeoning world with Robert Downey Jr. at the centre of it.

This being a time long before RDJ was the celebrated household name MCU fans know and adore today, the idea of the troubled Oscar-nominated actor being the focal point of not just Jon Favreau's game-changing first Iron Man outing but the daring adventure that was the soon-to-be sprawling Cinematic Universe as a whole wasn't an exciting one for Marvel Studios.

In fact, as Favreau would confess later down the road:

"What happened was they didn’t like the idea of Robert – they were scared of him, they told me ‘no, I couldn’t hire him’ and it felt like too big of a risk."

Sensing it would take just one glance at RDJ doing his Tony Stark thing to convince the studio he was more than the (Iron) man for the job, Favreau soon put the star down on tape, with the director revealing, "from the minute he opened his mouth everybody who saw the screen test was convinced..."

And the rest was Marvel Cinematic history...