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WHAT ELSE AM I GONNA DO?

When the Sun visited the set of Avengers that chilly day in December 2017, Downey had come to terms with his career comeback.

“How do you deal with being what you are? I mean, like I don’t know,” he said. “I guess, you know, what else am I gonna do?”

Instead, he seemed more interested in boasting about how now the actors are part of a “franchise team.”

“I think we really have become this kind of oddball family that genuinely looks after and cares for each other and supports each other,” he said. “That’s a first for me.”

But with new stories on the horizon, even then, before Infinity War and Endgame were unveiled to the world, Downey was excited at what Marvel’s subsequent films would look like.

“They’re bringing new energy and some of us are maybe tapping out or going away … who knows the future?”

The actor, still boyish looking at 54, now finds himself — like the rest of us — anticipating what’s next. “I’m a huge fan of movies and I always wonder: ‘How did they figure out how to entertain me this well?’ ”

Next month, he kicks off the 2020s with a starring role in a reboot of the Dr. Dolittle franchise. He’ll also suit up once again for a third Sherlock Holmes picture (due out in December 2021) and has booked a part in pal Jamie Foxx’s directorial debut, All-Star Weekend.

And there are more passion projects he still wants to realize. When he spoke to the Sun at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2014, he talked about wanting to play Geppetto in a live-action version of Pinocchio (“I see him as Chico Marx meets Jake LaMotta,” he joked). Team Downey, the production company he formed with his wife Susan, will also produce a biopic on Dr. John Brinkley, a scammer who found fame using fake medicine, populism and radio.

At the rate he’s going, 10 years from now, when we look back at the 2020s, the cocky billionaire playboy known as Iron Man and Downey’s place in the MCU might turn out to be an interesting way station as he sets about crafting his third act.

“Shooting (the final two Avengers films), I’m reminded now that I was talking a lot of smack saying, ‘Wait until you see where this goes.’ But in the moment (we were making the first Iron Man), I was just hoping day-to-day we were making good scenes and getting good stuff in the can … I just wanted not to drop the ball.”