In a 2022 interview with The Upcoming, Chris Smith spoke about how the film approached the complex dynamic between Robert Downey Jr. and his father: "Very early on Robert's like, 'We're not making a rosy portrait of our relationship because it wasn't all roses', and he was very clear about that. But I think there was an undeniable connection and love between these two people. So I think that push and pull was what made the film interesting. There's a real universality in the relationship between parents and children that we all have and we all experience and I think that those are the things that I was excited about because you have two larger than life personalities, yet there was something very relatable and human about the movie that came together in the end."
Robert Downey, Sr. is Robert Downey, Jr.'s father.