Robert Downey Jr. is one of the first of many truly perfect casting decisions that Marvel made when building the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, he was very nearly not cast as Iron Man.

The Oscar-winning actor kickstarted the MCU with the first Iron Man movie in 2008. Now, it’s abundantly clear that he is the “genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist” that is Tony Stark.

After entering the franchise, he played the iconic hero in 10 movies. He seemingly exited the role with 2019′s Avengers: Endgame, but there are some questions about a potential comeback.

Now it’s clear that he was the right choice. At the time, it was seen as a risk to cast him due to personal struggles. Marvel wanted to hit it out of the park and begin their franchise with a bang. They weren’t sure that he could do that.

This was before the MCU had become one of the biggest film franchises of all time. However, there was still a lot of interest in playing Tony Stark. In honor of the 16th anniversary of Iron Man this week, we did some digging and rounded up eight stars who were tied to the role.

The list includes one actor who outright turned it down and some other very big names that have commented on their experience.

Scroll through the slideshow to see all of the actors who were at some point considered for the role of Iron Man…