casting couch July 15, 2021

Robert Downey Jr. to Pivot From Hero to Villain in HBO The Sympathizer Series

Portrait of Justin Curto

By Justin Curto, who covers music, TV, and celebrity for Vulture

Photo: Kurt Krieger/Corbis via Getty Images

After closing his chapter as one of the most prominent heroes of the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Iron Man in 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, Robert Downey Jr. is giving the villain life a try. Deadline reported that the actor is joining an HBO series adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer-winning historical spy novel The Sympathizer, in which he’s set to star as multiple villain characters. The story will focus on an as-yet-uncast French and Vietnamese spy for North Vietnam at the end of the Vietnam War who follows a South Vietnamese community to the U.S. afterward. Downey Jr.’s roles in his first full television series will reportedly include a California politician, a CIA agent, and a movie director. The series will be an A24 production, with Don McKellar, Tony-winning playwright of The Drowsy Chaperone, serving as co-showrunner alongside The Handmaiden director Park Chan-wook, who is also set to direct the series. When news of the series, and Park’s involvement, was announced in April, Nguyen tweeted that Park’s 2003 thriller Oldboy “was a big influence” on the novel, his debut.

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Robert Downey Jr. Pivoting to Villain in HBO’s Sympathizer

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