The actor recently won the Oscar, thanks to his role in ‘Oppenheimer’.
After more than a decade installed in superhero cinema, Robert Downey Junior He has definitively reconciled himself with the profession. A condition that is still paradoxical, since it was precisely his role as Tony Stark that returned him to the sphere of acting, after years condemned to ostracism derived from his addictions. However, although he is a New Yorker he already has his brilliant golden statuette in his showcase for playing Lewis Strauss in Oppenheimer, the first trailer of The sympathizer It shows us that this desire to continue getting out of the role of Iron Man is very present, largely due to the physical transformation and characterization that he has achieved for his role in e.his new HBO miniseries.
Seeing Downey Jr. as a chameleonic performer is not new. In fact, he got his first Oscar nomination for playing Charles Chaplin and the second, for its unrepeatable character in Tropic Thunder. A white actor who underwent an operation to become black with the aim of giving life to a new character. A criticism of blackface and the fixation of some actors Stanislavski’s Method. However, and from what we have seen in the latest trailer for The sympathizercarry this quality to the extreme.
Trailer for ‘The Sympathizer’: What is the new HBO show about?
In the trailer of The sympathizerDowney is a kind of spy who assumes various clothing and characterizationsgiving life to multiple roles in a series that has been co-created by Park Chan-wook and Don McKellar. The first is one of the most influential Asian directors, thanks to works behind him such as oldboy either The maid. McKellar is a director, writer and actor, responsible among other works, for the script of The red violin. The Canadian has adapted the Pulitzer-winning novel, published in 2015 by Viet Thanh Nguyen. In addition to the former avenger, the miniseries stars Hoa Xuande and completes her cast with Fred Nguyen Khan, Sandra Oh, Kieu Chinh, VyVy Nguyen, Kayli Tran and Grace Gordon, among others.
The sympathizer is, at the same time, a spy thriller and a satire about the conflicts in the espionage world of the protagonist, an agent half french, half vietnamese during the final days of the Vietnam War. However, when he begins his new life in Los Angeles, he discovers that his days of spying are not over. We know that Park co-writes and directs the first three episodes, with Fernando Meirelles and Marc Munden filming the remaining four. Meirelles is also no stranger to cinephilia. The Brazilian is director of City of God, The loyal gardener, Blindly and the recent The two popes. Munden is a small screen celebrity, having directed episodes for Utopia, Black Sails or the miniseries The third dayalso from HBO.
When can we see it?
The seven chapters of The sympathizer will be published on the HBO platform individually, from the next April 15. Date by which the platform will have already abandoned the name “HBO”, leaving only the “Max” for the well-known streaming service. A controversial change manifested on the networks as an error, mainly due to the great authority and recognition that the brand has as a quality prescriber, within the small screen. Being a product of this cut and being a miniseries, a duration of one hour per episode.
It is not the only miniseries directed by Park Chan-wook available on the platform. Produced by the BBC and AMC, The drum girl It is available in the same way, within the catalog of the brand owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Starring Florence Pugh and Alexander Skarsgård, it is based on the novel of the same name by John Le Carré.
Park already talked about The sympathizerin an interview for IndieWire in 2023: “Overall, it is a seven-episode series and is set in 1975, immediately after the Vietnam War. The story covers Vietnamese refugees who have immigrated to Los Angeles and the stories surrounding that environment. Because of the context, the casting revolves around having a lot of diversity, especially a strong presence of Vietnamese and Vietnamese Americans.” The trailer of The sympathizer gives us a glimpse that it will not be a single exercise of the usual genre, but that the fiction will navigate between the tension and dangers from the world of espionage and also fromsatire and comedy that an actor like Downey Jr. has always handled so well.
It is expected to be one of the great fictions of 2024, ahead of the main small screen awards.
