Robert Downey Jr. Quit Gravity After 20 Minutes in the Camera Rig

Before Gravity became a 2013 critical and commercial juggernaut, Downey was the one attached to it. He clicked with director Alfonso Cuarón and was set to play the veteran astronaut.

He was attached early in the film’s development and hit it off with director Alfonso Cuarón. His team was building a multi-spherical camera rig to sell the illusion of floating in space, and Downey went in one morning to test it. “I’m one of those guys who can be comfortably uncomfortable pretty easily,” he told Stern.

Then came a morning test. Downey lasted 20 minutes, asked how much longer it would take, and was told another 2 to 4 hours. He said “no, it isn’t,” and left. The role of astronaut Matt Kowalski went to George Clooney.

Years later Howard Stern pointed out that Clooney and Bullock each walked away with around $70 million, then asked if Downey would have put up with the harness had he known. “Any of us can have anything,” Downey said, “but we can’t have everything.”

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