Robert Downey Jr. recalls the original Iron Man suit: He went blind when he put on the helmet

In a clip released for the third season of Netflix's "My Next Guest", Robert Downey Jr. talked about his experience playing Iron Man. Host David Letterman was very interested in the Iron Man helmet: "When that thing is put on your head in the movie, is there really such a helmet? Or are you not actually wearing a helmet?"

Downey recalled the early days when the future of the comic book film was still uncertain, when the first Iron Man movie was released in 2008, a year before Disney acquired Marvel Entertainment. Downey replied: "In the beginning, there was a real helmet. They wanted to spend as little money as possible on CG post-production, so I had to shoot with a helmet on, and it was so dense that I couldn't see, and then those LED lights came on, a bit like "Meet the Daredevil", and I was really blinded at the time."

It was that "Iron Man" that started it all, and gradually expanded to the later "Avengers", which has become today's top movie universe. Earlier this year, Downey said he had no plans or interest in playing Iron Man again.