Robert Downey Jr. added sunglasses to Tony Stark’s look to read cue cards in one scene and they stuck

Academy Award Winning Actor Robert Downey Jr. is now synonymous with Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

He pioneered the films that have thrilled fans of the modern superhero genre, and he did it with the style and panache that only he could bring to the role.

Tony Stark is simply effortlessly cool, and Downey nailed a style and personality that embodies the character. One choice he made when creating Stark was more about practicality than style, but it ended up being essential to his look.

In a video interview with Vanity Fair (via /Film), the actor revealed that in Iron ManDuring the presentation Tony gave to potential buyers of Stark missiles, his speech was printed on index cards, allowing him to give the scene an improvised feel.

However, to hide the fact that he was reading from those cue cards, Downey decided to give Tony a pair of sunglasses. It was a practical choice, but the sunglasses became a permanent part of Tony’s look in all subsequent Iron Man sequel.

RDJ explained: “There’s a scene where he’s doing a weapons test and he says, ‘Is it better to be feared or respected? Is it too much to ask for both?’ And [director] Day [Favreau] and I was literally writing that line by line as we went along shooting that day.

“And I wore sunglasses because it was all about the traffic tags. […] It’s more important that we feel like we’re just making something up, that we like it, and that there’s no trick we can’t use to hide the fact that we’re kind of making it up as we go along.”

Tony’s sunglasses became a central plot point in the 2019 film Spider-Man: Far From HomeAfter Tony’s death in Avengers: EndgameHe left his sunglasses to his protégé Peter Parker, aka Spider-Man (Tom Holland).

What Peter didn’t know was that the sunglasses were equipped with a high-tech artificial intelligence that gave them access to a series of space-based killer missiles that Tony had built. It seems that Tony has backtracked on his promise to disarm.

Back inside again Iron ManHowever, Tony’s sunglasses were just that, and it’s curious that they became such a plot device.