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Tom Cruise never came “close” to playing Iron Man.
The 60-year-old actor has long been subjected to rumours he was in the running to play Tony Stark and his superhero alter ego, but he’s now addressed the speculation and insisted he “can’t imagine” anyone other than Robert Downey Jr. in the Marvel Cinematic Universe role.
Asked about the speculation, he told podcast ‘Phase Zero’: “Not close.
“I love Robert Downey Jr., and I can’t imagine anyone else doing that role, and I think it’s perfect for him.”
Last year, ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’ screenwriter Michael Waldron admitted he had been so inspired by the speculation about Tom, he pitched the idea of getting the ‘Top Gun’ actor to play a variant of Tony Stark in his 2022 movie.
He said of the rumours: “Yeah, that was totally made up. I mean, there’s no cut footage of Tom Cruise.
“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.
“As it was being talked about online, I was like, ‘Yeah, that’d be cool!’ “
But the writer confirmed he didn’t think anyone had got in touch with Tom’s team “because of availability”.
Back in 2005, the ‘Mission: Impossible’ actor admitted he had been approached for the role but didn’t feel it was “gonna work” in the way he would have wanted it to.
He said: “They came to me at a certain point and, when I do something, I wanna do it right.
“If I commit to something, it has to be done in a way that I know it’s gonna be something special.
“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.”
