Terrence Howard Opens Up on Feeling Betrayed By Robert Downey Jr. After Providing Help To Score Iron Man Role: “I need the help I gave you”
Terrence Howard played the role of James Rhodes in the first installment of ‘Iron Man.’ It was a pretty big role as he was considered a co-lead, side by side with, at the time, Iron Man, whose role was not cast when Howard himself got the role.
According to the actor and some different reports, the studio wanted to go with a different actor altogether but Howard sacrificed $1 million from his own pay to secure the audition for Robert Downey Jr.
Following a series of incidents of a personal nature, Howard was eventually recast and replaced by Don Cheadle, something that almost derailed his career. Howard recently opened up on his experience and all the emotions he was feeling after being snubbed by the studio, and surprisingly he felt the most hurt by Robert Downey Jr.
According to his most recent appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast, Howard reached out to RDJ after he was in danger of losing the role, and the actor – ghosted him completely, not talking to him for at least three years after Howard reached out for help.
When this other thing happened, I’m calling Robert and he’s doing Sherlock Homes. I called him 27 times and I leave a message. I’m calling his assistant. I’m like, ‘I need the help I gave you.’ I didn’t hear from him until 3 years later when I bumped into him at Brian Grazer’s wedding. But at that time I’d had Empire or whatever and I came back he was like, ‘Oh but everything worked out for you.’ That broke me a little bit.
Terrence Howard disclosed that when he initially signed on for Iron Man, he had a three-picture deal with increasing pay. However, after the first film, the studio drastically reduced his salary due to personal challenges he was facing. Feeling hurt, he revealed that the studio quickly approached Don Cheadle for the role. Despite this, he was dismayed by the studio’s portrayal of him as difficult on set.
They said, ‘We want Terrence but we want him to come back for a million dollars, instead of the 8 million that we had agreed to. My agent had an emotional reaction to a business decision and he said, ‘F-you’, and hung up the phone. Immediately, they go to Don Cheadle. But instead of just doing that they had to spend, ‘Oh, he was terrible on set,’ and all of these things and went through all this stuff.
While re-negotiations of deals happen all the time, it’s usually that the actor is able to leverage his popularity to get a pay increase, not a decrease. In any case, we are shocked to learn this about RDJ as he always maintained a certain reputation, as being one of the nicest guys in the industry. What do you think? Let us know in the comments below!
