Although Robert Downey Jr. has frequently expressed support for Ironheart, the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Black Panther/Iron Man spin-off currently airing on Disney+, it still seems unlikely the celebrated actor will actually appear on the show as either Tony Stark or his next anticipated Marvel character, Doctor Doom. But one of the series’ stars does have a notable onscreen history with Downey Jr. from outside the franchise. Alden Ehrenreich appears in Ironheart as a character with a major tie to Tony’s MCU history after sharing several memorable confrontations with Downey Jr. in the Oscar-winning Christopher Nolan film Oppenheimer.
Who Does Alden Ehrenreich Play in ‘Ironheart’ and ‘Oppenheimer’?
In Ironheart, Ehrenreich plays a black-market technology collector who is revealed to be Ezekiel “Zeke” Stane, the son of Obadiah Stane/Iron Monger (Jeff Bridges), Tony’s first major antagonist, who arranged his abduction in the original Iron Man movie. Zeke resents his father’s immoral actions and hopes not to emulate them, although some of his scenes and Ehrenreich’s performance suggest that he has a dangerous instability that will likely result in him also eventually becoming a villain, albeit a more sympathetic one than Obadiah. Viewers who have also seen Oppenheimer will likely find this somewhat ironic, as Ehrenreich’s character in that film is noticeably more moral than Downey Jr.’s, with the pair clashing in one of the film’s key storylines.
In Oppenheimer, Downey Jr. plays Rear Admiral Lewis Strauss, who develops a vindictive grudge against J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) during their time working together in the Atomic Energy Commission, as most viewers will likely remember, given that the actor’s performance was one of many aspects of the film that was enthusiastically praised, with it earning Downey Jr. the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Ehrenreich’s character is an unnamed, fictional aide assigned to help Strauss during Senate confirmation hearings before the latter’s planned appointment to the position of Secretary of Commerce, which ultimately proves unsuccessful. The aide serves as a point of view character in the scenes focusing on the hearings, set in 1959, keeping the viewer from becoming disoriented by the film’s nonlinear chronology. But even more crucially, his emotions also parallel those of the viewer as his disgust with and reluctance to help Strauss become increasingly apparent as he learns more about the older man’s underhanded sabotage of Oppenheimer’s political career after World War II, especially the elaborate conspiracy he mounted to get the scientist’s government security clearance revoked.
Robert Downey Jr.’s ‘Oppenheimer’ Performance Surprised Marvel Fans
Ehrenreich’s performance is much more subtle than the often grandiose spite Downey Jr. brings to Strauss, but is similarly effective. The aide’s increasingly oppositional energy is crucial to provoking many of Strauss’ memorable outbursts, as his biased explanations of his history with Oppenheimer make his corruption and pettiness more obvious, while his chances of confirmation continue to dwindle. Ehrenreich’s quietly satisfied deliveries in the scene when the group learns of Strauss’ denial emphasizes the catharsis the viewer feels at this time and his character gets one of the film’s best lines when he points out that there’s a good chance the conversation between Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein (Tom Conti) that Strauss irrationally believes turned the latter scientist against him was actually about something “more important.”
While he’d certainly long since proven to be a versatile actor capable of tackling a variety of roles, part of the reason Downey Jr.’s work in Oppenheimer is so effectively chilling is that he’d spent much of the prior decade and a half playing Tony, who, while certainly a flawed and complex character, was also ultimately a lovable hero that viewers of the world’s biggest movie franchise were used to rooting for, with subsequent Oppenheimer audiences likely surprised to find themselves aligned with the lesser known Ehrenreich’s character against his (if they had not read the book the biopic was based on). The latter’s casting as a darker character in Ironheart reverses this effect again, producing an interesting, cyclical relationship between both actors’ work in Nolan’s Best Picture and the MCU. Even if Ehrenreich ends up returning to the franchise as Zeke for a later project, it’s still unlikely he’ll share the screen with any version of Tony, despite their indirect connection via Obadiah, but on the off chance they do so it would be fascinating to see how the actors’ onscreen rapport changes in the drastically different context.
Oppenheimer
- Release Date
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July 21, 2023
- Runtime
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150 Minutes
