Robert Downey Jr. appears entirely different on the set of The Sympathizer. For his role as Tony Stark, nicknamed Iron Man, in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the two-time Oscar nominee actor is best known. After Avengers: Endgame, Downey Jr. left the franchise, but he has not yet had the kind of success that can match his career-defining performance. His first role after the MCU was in the critically and financially disastrous 2020 Dolittle revival, which cost Universal as much as $50–100 million. With Sr., a touching biopic about his late father that received raving reviews, Downey Jr. had more luck since then. Downey Jr. hopes to continue his recent success with a plethora of intriguing options coming up.
The Sympathizer, which is now filming in Los Angeles, is one of Downey Jr.’s new roles. The New York Post and other media sources now have the first glimpse of Robert Downey Jr. on the HBO miniseries set. The former MCU actor is completely unrecognisable in the set photo, sporting a wavy red hairpiece with a receding hairline. The actor also seems to be using some facial makeup and may even be sporting some prosthetics to make him appear much older.
The Sympathizer, an espionage thriller and a cross-cultural satire, is an HBO adaptation of Viet Tanh Nguyen’s 2016 Pulitzer Prize-winning book of the same name. A half-French, half-Vietnamese man who spied for Communist forces in the closing stages of the Vietnam War will be the subject of the miniseries. He is exiled to Los Angeles, where he integrates himself into the Vietnamese refugee community. The majority of the cast of The Sympathizer are Vietnamese and Vietnamese-American actors, which is appropriate given the film’s subject matter. These actors include recurring characters like Sandra Oh, Hoa Xuande, Fred Nguyen Khan, Toan Le, Vy Le, and Alan Trong.
According to a rumour, Robert Downey Jr. receives at least $2 million every episode from The Sympathizer, making him one of the highest-paid actors in television. Downey Jr. is portraying a number of opponents, each of whom stands for a different branch of the American establishment, including a congressman, a CIA operative, and a Hollywood director, so the remuneration is well deserved. The former MCU actor will sport a variety of diverse looks in The Sympathizer, as seen in this new set photo. On social media and in public, Downey Jr. recently startled everyone by shaving his head, but based on this set photo, it appears that he had to wear hairpieces for his several parts in The Sympathizer.