Christopher Nolan Admits He Was ‘Little Afraid’ Of Robert Downey Jr When They First Met

Robert Downey Jr. had earlier revealed that he first met Oppenheimer director Christopher Nolan back in the early 2000s to potentially play the villain in Batman Begins. Now, in a recent interview with The New York Times, Nolan has opened up about the same meeting. Nolan has mentioned how he was not interested in casting Robert for the director’s 2005 superhero tentpole.

Christopher Nolan on his first meeting with Robert Downey Jr

Speaking about the same, Nolan said, “I 100% knew you weren’t the guy [for Scarecrow].” He added, “In my head that was already cast. But I always wanted to meet you…I was a huge admirer of yours and therefore selfishly just wanted to take the meeting. But I was also a little afraid of you, you know. I had heard all kinds of stories about how you were crazy. It was only a few years after the last of those stories that had come out about you.”

This first meeting was before Marvel cast the actor as Iron Man. 

Rober is currently basking in the reflection of the thirteen nominations, his last release Oppenheimer has bagged from the Academy. The Nolan directorial featured Downey Jr in the role of Lewis Strauss. 

Robert on his first meeting with Christopher Nolan

Robert revealed that he met Nolan with the prospect of playing the villainous Scarecrow in the director’s Dark Knight origin story. However, he didn’t get the part. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Downey said, “I’m pretty sure I heard about [this role] and I was like, ‘I’m Scarecrow.” He added, “And then I remember meeting [Nolan] for tea and I was like, ‘He doesn’t seem like he’s really in on this interview.’ And he was polite and all that. But you can tell when someone is kind of like, ‘It’s not going to go anywhere.'”