Robert Downey Jr. suits up anew in 'Iron Man 3'

MANILA, Philippines - Two-time Academy Award-nominee Robert Downey Jr. returns as eccentric genius, billionaire, philanthropist Tony Stark aka the armored super hero known as Iron Man, in Marvel's new action adventure “Iron Man 3.”

Decompressing from his heroic, near-self-sacrificial action saved New York City from annihilation (in “Marvel's The Avengers”), Tony now finds himself unable to sleep and plagued by worry and trepidation. When his world is destroyed and those closest to him threatened, Tony must find a way to save them—and in the process find himself again.

“Even though the world knows and loves Tony Stark, he is still learning and struggling to define where Iron Man ends and his own life begins, which has made him increasingly dependent on his Iron Man armors,” explains executive producer Steven Broussard. “They have become such a big part of him that they’re affecting every aspect of his life, including those closest to him.”

“How do you take a billionaire, industrialist playboy and make him relatable and somebody that you can root for?” questions producer Kevin Feige. “One way is to have Robert Downey Jr., who just makes Tony Stark so likable and a great hero. The other way is to take everything away from the character, which then makes you root for the guy.”

“From the beginning, there was this sense of including the point of view of the fans as well as the audience coming in off the street who knew nothing about the character,” says Downey Jr. “We would ask ourselves, ‘What do they expect?’ ‘What do they not expect?’ and ‘How do we meet both of those requirements?’

“Growing up as an actor and being in the public eye, there is this incredible hubris and ego that occurs and then for any and all of us there is always an activating event in our lives that cuts us down to size,” continues Downey Jr. “The nice thing about Tony Stark is that he doesn’t even take his own arc that seriously because he falls so far from where he was. He really needed to, and I think people have always related to that life-lesson part of the character.”

Further explaining Tony Stark/Iron Man, the actor delineates the character’s evolution over the course of the previous films. “Tony has been through a real emotional journey leading up to this film,” says Downey Jr. “We first met Tony in ‘Iron Man’ and he had shrapnel in his heart. Yinsen helps him build an RT to keep it from puncturing his heart. So then he built and put in his own RT. And what has that done? That’s powered everything, but it started poisoning him in ‘Iron Man 2.’ So then what happened? His father posthumously led him through a mysterious initiation into how to perfect his own heart.”

He continues, “But in ‘Iron Man 3,’ although Tony has now fixed his heart problem, he has not actually dealt with the wound. So once you have all those things in play you go, ‘Okay, with all of those plates spinning at the same time, what is he supposed to do?’ That’s the direction we’ve chosen for the character and it is absolutely delightful.”

“The reason we cast Robert Downey Jr. in ‘Iron Man’ was because he’s a spectacular actor and, since then, he’s obviously become the biggest movie star in the world and he has shown us in each ‘Iron Man’ film and ‘Marvel’s The Avengers’ why that is,” says Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige. “He doesn’t rest on his laurels. He doesn’t come in and say, ‘I’m the biggest star in the world.’ He comes in and shows you why he’s the biggest star in the world. So when we began the initial talks about where we wanted to take Tony Stark in ‘Iron Man 3,’ Robert, as always, had a very definitive passion and drive to put in the time and effort to up the stakes and make this film the best of the franchise.”

Opening across the Philippines tomorrow, April 24 in IMAX 3D, Digital 3D and regular theatres, “Iron Man 3” is presented by Marvel Studios in association with Paramount Pictures and DMG Entertainment. The film is distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.