KEM wrote: ↑

June 18th, 2023, 9:30 am

That closeup shot of him in the car is so awesome

"He is so beyond exceptional", exclaimed Downey.

"What's really trippy is that there used to be a show on TV called 'Man, Moment, Machine' about when the right individual at a point in history came up with the right discovery, and I could say the same thing about Cillian Murphy".

"He is perfectly disposed to have the relationship with Chris Nolan, to have this opportunity come up, and to have the wherewithal, the gift and the intestinal fortitude to survive making it".

"We've been on some tough projects, but I have never seen anybody have a bigger lift in the history of my career than Cillian Murphy playing Oppenheimer".

Lewis Strauss
Robert Downey, Jr.

Lewis Strauss was a founding commissioner of the Atomic Energy Commission in 1947, playing a key role in shaping America’s post-war nuclear policy. Strauss met Oppenheimer that same year in Strauss’s capacity as a trustee of the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton University. So began a fraught relationship between two men who were both stubborn, wildly ambitious, and, in their own way, earnestly patriotic. Strauss was a Southerner, devoutly religious, a high school graduate who was always deeply insecure about his lack of formal education, a political conservative and dogmatically anti-Communist, while Oppenheimer was from the Northeast, effortlessly brilliant and highly educated, an ardent liberal with left-leaning politics.

To play Strauss, Christopher Nolan and Emma Thomas approached an actor they had wanted to work with for many years, two-time Oscar® nominee (for Chaplin in 1992 and Tropic Thunder in 2009) and longtime Iron Man, Robert Downey, Jr.

The Oppenheimer opportunity arrived in Downey Jr.’s life at a moment when he was trying to be choosy following his blockbuster run playing the foremost avenger of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. “I had been cooling my heels for about a year before the pandemic, just reacquainting myself with my family and other interests because I had been working super consistently,” says Downey Jr., who recently produced “Sr.”, the acclaimed documentary about his late father, the revered experimental filmmaker Robert Downey, Sr., and their relationship. “But this was Christopher Nolan, doing something that was important to him. The cast was this large gathering of folks who have their choice of projects. And just as soon as we were under way, world events lined up in a way that turned this movie into an important metaphor that could speak to any number of things. So, it was kind of a no- brainer.”

The more Downey researched Strauss, and his complex relationship with Oppenheimer, the more he grew to see Strauss as a complicated figure whose world view had its merits, at least in the context of the historical moment. “I’ll give you one example,” says Downey Jr. “The Pacific Theater in World War II was so critical. Our torpedoes weren’t exploding at the right depths or distance from their targets. Strauss knew the proximity fuse would help the cause, and because he pushed for it energetically, with all his bureaucratic means, he helped shorten the war. But did anyone ever say Lewis Strauss helped shorten the war? No. Later, as he was figuring out that the Russians had atomic weapons and Strauss began advocating for H-bomb testing, which Oppenheimer opposed, Strauss did it believing it might save lives, in the same way that the innovation of the proximity fuse saved lives. His rationale isn’t as simple as ‘I need to win’ or ‘I need you to lose.’ There’s always some motivation from him where you can say, ‘Well, but he’s right.’”

And as for the haircut that playing Strauss required of him, Downey Jr. didn’t flinch about it. “The funny thing about shaving back my hairline was that it reminded me of my dad, which is never a bad thing, although it did also offer my long-suffering wife a preview of the shape of things to come,” says Downey Jr. “But it was definitely right for the character. I think Chris was kind of worried or wondered if I wanted to fudge it. But that’s the last thing I would do. And all it meant was that I wore a lot of baseball caps for a while afterward.”

MyCocaine wrote: ↑

July 20th, 2023, 12:32 pm

Robert Downey Jr. wins an Oscar for this role.

cesar1st wrote: ↑

July 31st, 2023, 10:16 pm

Real cover vs Film cover

ikhan1 wrote: ↑

August 30th, 2023, 8:12 pm

Where did the RDJ Strauss TIME cover come from, if I may ask? Trying to make a prop replica of the magazine and would love a high resolution photo of it!