Tom Cruise reveals he wasn’t close to playing Iron Man before Robert Downey Jr. won role

Tom Cruise revealed that he wasn’t close to playing Iron Man before the role went to Robert Downey Jr., during a recent interview on the Phase Zero podcast. 

The 60-year-old Top Gun actor has been associated with an oft-repeated, yet evidently untrue rumor, that he was nearly cast as Tony Stark before the 2008 movie Iron Man. 

‘Not close,’ he said during the interview. ‘I love Robert Downey Jr., and I can’t imagine anyone else doing that role, and I think it’s perfect for him.’ 

Cruise doesn’t seem to be speaking modestly either as he isn’t the first person to dispel the rumor. 

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness screenwriter Michael Waldron previously said that the rumor didn’t have a basis in reality. 

‘Yeah, that was totally made up. I mean, there’s no cut footage of Tom Cruise,’ he said during a 2022 Rolling Stone interview. 

‘But I love Tom Cruise, and I said to [Marvel Studios president] Kevin [Feige] at one point, I was like, “Could we get Tom Cruise’s Iron Man?” I remember reading about that in Ain’t It Cool News back in the day, that Tom Cruise was going to be Iron Man.’ 

Michael added that he doesn’t think anyone reached out to Cruise because they assumed he would be too busy. 

Cruise once told IGN about being approached to play Iron Man back in 2005 though it ultimately didn’t work out. 

‘They came to me at a certain point and, when I do something, I wanna do it right,’ he said. ‘If I commit to something, it has to be done in a way that I know it’s gonna be something special.’ 

He continued, ‘And as it was lining up, it just didn’t feel to me like it was gonna work. I need to be able to make decisions and make the film as great as it can be, and it just didn’t go down that road that way.’ 

While he may not be a member of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the star has a number of products coming out soon. 

He has two Mission: Impossible movies on the way as well as an untitled SpaceX project. 

Tony Stark: The 60-year-old Top Gun actor has been associated with an oft-repeated, yet evidently untrue rumor, that he was nearly cast as Tony Stark before the 2008 movie Iron Man; Downey pictured in a still from Iron Man

‘Not close,’ he said during the interview. ‘I love Robert Downey Jr., and I can’t imagine anyone else doing that role, and I think it’s perfect for him’ (pictured May 2022) 

The SpaceX movie will be the first ever Hollywood movie shot in space. Doug Liman, who Cruise has worked with on multiple movies, will direct the experimental project. 

He’s also set to reprise his role of Cage in the movie Live Die Repeat and Repeat. 

Live Die Repeat and Repeat will be the follow up to the 2014 movie Edge of Tomorrow, also directed by Doug Liman. 

The movie centered around ‘A soldier (Cruise) fighting aliens gets to relive the same day over and over again, the day restarting every time he dies,’ according to the movie’s IMDb page. 

Emily Blunt will reportedly also come back for the second movie though she is just rumored to be in the movie. 

Sequel coming soon: Cruise is =set to reprise his role of Cage in the movie Live Die Repeat and Repeat