At the conclusion of Iron Man 3, Tony Stark destroyed his armoury of suits and finally had the ARC reactor he had been dependent on for a number of years removed. That obviously leaves him with a new status quo in Avengers: Age of Ultron, and talking to Marvel.com recently, the actor had this to say about how Iron Man has since changed as a result. "I thought that the third Iron Man was about [Tony] transcending his dependence on the merits of continuing to wear your wound. That was what [director] Shane [Black] and I thought was the real win, that he throws that thing that had become a dependency away. Because that was the question I was always asking, why doesn’t he get those shards out [of his chest]? It’s dangerous." As for how that relates to where Earth's Mightiest Heroes and Stark's decision to build an army of robots to help police the world and allow the Avengers to take a step back, he added: "It reminds me of all that stuff, particularly as you get a little older or if you have any existential queries whatsoever. Why aren’t I dealing with that which is going to destroy me any second anyway? The armor was kind of an extension of that. There were so many suits, but I think he realizes that making all the suits in the world, which is what he had been doing, still didn’t [help him]. His focus [now] is more on how can we make it so that there’s no problem to begin with. That there’s a bouncer at our planet’s rope."
Talk then turned to writer and director Joss Whedon, and Downey Jr. had nothing but good things to say about the Avengers: Age of Ultron helmer. "First of all, he’s a good writer. I always tend to think, generally speaking, is this a movie I want to see? Because all the fine points are going to get worked out. This time, I think that from jump I thought wow, this is what I hadn’t figured out beforehand. This is what ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’ should be. I was done with the first draft and I said, ‘Cool. I like it.’ [Producer] Kevin [Feige] was like, ‘Wait, what did you just say?’ [laughs] And [Joss] is continuing to write, even as we’re setting up shots. He’s bringing back in a line that was in the first draft or whatever." He adds, "This time around, I just want to say in summary it’s been fun. We all have become close. It just seems like we’re all genuinely developing relationships with each other. And I think the start and end of it is in trusting Joss. That he really, really knows what he’s doing." Here's hoping Whedon will be back for the two-part Avengers: Infinity War.