Robert Downey Jr. a small appearance as Iron Man's alter ego Tony Stark in the 2008 film "The Incredible Hulk", as a part of Marvel Studios' depicting the same Marvel Universe on film by providing continuity among the movies. After "Iron Man", Downey appeared alongside Ben Stiller and Jack Black in the Stiller-directed "Tropic Thunder". The three actors play a Hollywood archetype—with Downey playing self-absorbed multi-Oscar-winning Australian method actor Kirk Lazarus—as they star in an extremely expensive Vietnam-era film called "Tropic Thunder". Lazarus undergoes a "controversial skin pigmentation procedure" in order to take on the role of African-American platoon sergeant Lincoln Osiris, which
Robert Downey Sr. Robert Downey Sr. Robert John Downey Sr. (born Robert Elias Jr.; June 24, 1935) is a retired American actor, director, producer, writer and cinematographer, and the father of actor Robert Downey Jr. He is best known for writing and directing the underground film "Putney Swope", a satire on the New York Madison Avenue advertising world. According to film scholar Wheeler Winston Dixon, the elder Downey's films during the 1960s were "strictly take-no-prisoners affairs, with minimal budgets and outrageous satire, effectively pushing forward the countercultural agenda of the day". Robert John Downey Sr. was born on June 24, 1935 in New