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Marvel Star Gifted Boy Robotic Iron Man Arm, But There’s More to His Story

Marvel Star Gifted Boy Robotic Iron Man Arm, But There’s More to His Story

By Movieguide® Contributor

Not only does Robert Downey Jr. play a superhero on the big screen, but he’s a real-life hero to a young fan named Alex Pring.

Pring was born with his right arm missing from just above his elbow.

Through Downey Jr. and Limitless Solutions — a volunteer group started by Albert Manero, a University of Central Florida engineering PhD student, to make free bionic arms for kids — Pring was given the gift of a lifetime.

The actor met with Pring back in 2015 and presented him with two arms, “one from Downey’s movies and one for Alex: a real, working robotic Iron Man arm. As they both tried theirs on, they compared the lights inside their palms.”

“Had the absolute privilege of presenting a brand spanking new 3D-printed bionic Iron Man arm to Alex, the most dapper 7-year-old I’ve ever met,” Downey Jr. said.

At the time of this exchange, Pring was just 7, but now he is 16 and a linebacker on his high school football team.

In a recent interview with local news station, he describes his journey to high school football as a “long” but “fun one.”

“I have had to overcome so many things,” Pring said. “Whether it’s in the weight room, how to tackle, how to run. It’s like learning to walk again. It’s a lot. I have put in my work. I think I am putting in three times as much work as most people.”

Once at practice, Pring said what helps him is to find a rhythm.

“It’s easier the more you do it,” he explained. “Like, say in the weight room. It was really hard for me because not having the other arm you couldn’t hold the other side. So, I learned a way to use dumbbells and bench. I work out still using bands, using my resources.

“I hear a lot of, ‘I can’t believe you’ve done this,’” he continued. “But then they see me on the field and see me do something the same as these (Division 1) athletes and it’s a switch for them.”

Movieguide® previously reported on Downey’s return to the MCU:

Weeks after Robert Downey Jr.’s big MCU return reveal as Doctor Doom, the star is sharing how his Marvel reprise happened.

“Susan [Downey] and I were sitting down with Feige at one point, and he said, ‘It just keeps occurring to me that if you were to come back,’ and Susan was like, ‘Wait, come back as what?’” Downey said about Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige convincing him to return.

The IRON MAN star said, “he and his wife, who is also his producing partner, witnessed in that moment Feige, 51, being ‘a very sophisticated creative thinker,’ as he pitched the couple about Downey Jr. playing Doctor Doom,” The NY Post reported Aug. 21.

Feige wanted to be sure that they met expectations and didn’t “go backward” with Downey as Dr. Doom.

“He brought up Victor Von Doom,” the award-winning actor continued. “And I looked into it as character, and I was like, ‘Wow.’ But later on he goes, ‘Let’s get Victor Von Doom right.’”


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