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Robert Downey Jr. Responds to Quentin Tarantino’s Marvel Dig: ‘There’s Enough Room for Everything’

Samantha Bergeson
·3 min read

Robert Downey Jr. is weighing in on the infamous Marvel debate.

Downey, who played Iron Man for over a decade in the MCU, addressed Quentin Tarantino’s recent comments that Marvel actors are not movie stars and that, rather, the characters they play are the theatrical draw. Now, Downey responded to Tarantino’s “Marvel-ization of Hollywood” statements.

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“I think our opinions on these matters say a lot about us,” Downey told Deadline. “I think that we are in a time and place that I unwittingly contributed to, where IP has taken precedence over principle and personality. But it’s a double-edged sword. A piece of IP is only as good as the human talent you get to represent it, and you can have some great IP even if it’s coming from an auteur or a national treasure of a writer-director, and if you don’t have the right kind of artist playing that role, you’ll never know how good it could have been.”

Downey continued, “I think that creatively it is a waste of time to be at war with ourselves. I think this is a time when everything is so much more fragmented now that I think you have this kind of bifurcation. Throwing stones one way or another…and I’ve had my reactions in the past when people said things that I felt were discrediting my integrity…I go, ‘You know what? Let’s just get over it. We’re all a community. There’s enough room for everything,’ and thank God for ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ and ‘Avatar: The Way of Water.’ That’s all I have to say. We need the big stuff to make room for films like ‘Armageddon Time.'”

Downey personally added, “I’m not talking about trickle-down entertainment. I’m just saying that things are always changing and I’m at a place in my life where I’ve now gone back to back, working with Chris Nolan on what was an exceptionally transformational experience for me; having been in pre-production post and bringing ‘Sr.’ to market; and the next thing I’m doing is a series with my Mrs. and the director Park Chan-Wook, based on a Pulitzer book called ‘The Sympathizer.‘ It’s already a transformative, literally playing five different roles, experience for me. So, I would just say, before we cast aspersions on each other — undergo your own renaissance and see if it doesn’t change your mind a little bit.”

Fellow MCU stars Simu Liu and Samuel L. Jackson also recently reacted to Tarantino’s statement, with “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” actor Liu calling Tarantino a “gatekeeper” of Hollywood prestige along with frequent Marvel critic Martin Scorsese.

“They are transcendent auteurs,” Liu said. “But they don’t get to point their nose at me or anyone.”

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