We parsed two major Robert Downey Jr. profiles this weekend, one from the Times and one from GQ. “Iron Man” is right around the corner so everyone is using it as a hook to posit how RDJ’s trajectory from destitute, uninsurable trainwreck to carrying what’s likely going to be summer’s first big box-office salvo, as Hollywood’s biggest comebacks ever. Every one’s also using it as an excuse to fondly recall and recount all his personal disasters and juicy down-and-out stories. And while it’s a little rubberneck-y, we can understand the fascination. Both profiles re-remind us that at the time, the initial casting of Downey as Tony Stark/Iron Man seemed like a pretty risky or at least inventive move for a multi-million dollar super-hero film (the move feels inpired now; no one can seem to agree at how much the film actually cost, the Times puts it at $130 million while GQ puts it at a reported $180 million)
It’s a lot to digest. Highlights from the NY Times/GQ articles:
Downey Goes The Extra Mile For Iron Man
Downey wanted to the part so bad he conceded to a screen test, the 2nd ever of his career. “The people who made this movie said they were going to screen-test some people, and I thought: ‘Well, that’s how I got “Chaplin.” Maybe this will work again,’ ” Downey said. “If you’re going to spend a hundred million bucks on a movie, why not see who works?” “He tried and tried and tried and got shot down,” ‘Iron Man’ director Jon Favreau told GQ, “until finally he went on-camera and all argument ended.”
Favreau Wanted To Make A Deeper Super-Hero Movie
“[RDJ] was not the obvious choice, but my larger fear was making a mediocre movie; the landscape of the superhero is very picked over. I knew that Robert’s performance would elevate the movie.”
The Good Ol’ Insane Days
He once showed up to meet director Mike Figgis (“Leaving Las Vegas”) two hours late, barefoot, with a loaded shotgun he could not quite explain. In 2000, there’s a call to the front lobby desk that gets him put away. “In room 311 of the Merv Griffin resort there is a man doing an ounce of cocaine and [who has] a couple of guns and is pretty upset.”
A BFF had to punch him out to take him to Rehab Once, The buddy “had to crash down a door of his, and I had to wrestle him, grab him, and punch him and throw him over my back and carry him and stuff him in a car and fly him, rent a jet and fly him, to a facility, and I remember at the time saying, ‘If you fight back, I’m gonna slug you again.’ ”
In The Pokey
In case you forgot, RDJ did jail time, twice, including an L.A. county jail residence and a more dangerous one-year stint in the California State lockup Cocoran where he had to fight to earn respect. He woke up in a pool of his own blood at least twice. He got beaten up badly enough by three inmates to require plastic surgery for a gash on his forehead. (in the dirty county stay he had to hang his leftover sandwich meats up high so the rats couldn’t reach them)
Shitting Where You Eat: “I’ve always been the type of fellow,” he said at the Sundance festival in 2003, “to put all my eggs in one basket and then promptly take a dump in the basket.”
He’s Kind Of A Republican, or at least he spent enough time in jail with true-to-life reprobates and low-life scum that belonged there he’s not about to champion for the wrongly accused anytime soon. “I have a really interesting political point of view, and it’s not always something I say too loud at dinner tables here, but you can’t go from a $2,000-a-night suite at La Mirage to a penitentiary and really understand it and come out a liberal. You can’t. I wouldn’t wish that experience on anyone else, but it was very, very, very educational for me and has informed my proclivities and politics every since,” he told GQ. Taped above the refrigerator he has photos with President Bush and Mrs. Bush; with Tom Cruise, Mrs. Cruise, and Suri (the latter family if not quite republicans, then the spawns of alien overlords) The Times reminds us like Dick Cheney, Tony Stark wears a pacemaker.
His Moment of Clarity Came at Burger King (NY Times excerpt):
On or around Independence Day in 2003, he stopped at a Burger King on the Pacific Coast Highway and threw all his drugs in the ocean. And while he was sitting there chewing on a burger, he decided he was done. This being America, five years later you can walk into that Burger King, and if you order a Kids Meal you can get your own Robert Downey Jr. action figure, wrapped up in gadget ware. (And what does Tony Stark want when he escapes his kidnappers? A good old American cheeseburger — from Burger King, natch.)
RDJ Might Be Ben Stiller’s Best Publicist
“Stiller is the closest living thing to Chaplin that I’ve ever experienced. He understands drama, he’s a force in the editing room, he knows exactly how he wants the set to look and how to frame the shot, telling the DP who shot The Thin Red Line to use the 85 lens,” RDJ told GQ.
Sage Oscar Advice (Lines basically improved and extrapolated from a scene in “Tropic Thunder”)
Man, you went full retard.” whispering in his Osirus voice, “Never go full retard.” , “You don’t believe me? Ask Sean Penn. 2001. ‘I Am Sam.’ Went full retard. Went home with nothin’.”
The Goldilocks Incident – A Near Death Experience
Three weeks after being arrested for heroin, crack cocaine and gun possession, he wandered into a neighbor’s house in Malibu, passed out in the empty bed of the son, and was revived by paramedics. In retrospect, he’s forced to admit, the neighbor’s house looked nothing like his—you had to take an elevator down to enter it.
While Highly Likeable, RDJ Can Be Seriously Pretentious:
“Life is hard enough without creating drama, isn’t it? I don’t want to say it’s too hard, because that really starts to sound like a spoiled Hollywood type, but that’s me, too. I’m about as badass as a domesticated lynx can be. If we really gotta throw down, I’ll tear your eye sockets out and I’ll drag you up in the tree and we’ll do the whole fucking feline thing. But all things being equal, give me a bowl of milk and let me lick my fur and let me wax prolific on what it means to be a member of the cat family. Because it’s a big deal, and you don’t get to be me, and I do, so fuck you.” Then he laughs and talks about how his eyes can dazzle the audience.
Fly Like An Eagle, err, Iron Man: After flying in a vertical wind tunnel for a stunt with the GQ writer, an excited RDJ calls the San Francisco ILM special effects guys working on ‘Iron Man’ to try and relay a new aerial maneuver idea. “I just, ah, I had an idea for one of Iron Man’s flying scenes.” The writer is a “little floored, because there’s something so crushingly sincere here.”
He Punches Out Writers Inadvertently
Later in the GQ piece during a sparring match of Wing Chun kung fu, he punches the GQ writer in the face and draws blood. “Feels good,” he says. “Doesn’t it?”
RDJ Is Moving At A Fast Clip: Having just wrapped “The Soloist,” and “Tropic Thunder,” RDJ is on a bit of an acting tear. “The only thing is that now, because he’s been kept away from living his dream for so long, I think he’s sort of attacking it voraciously.” Favreau told GQ. “He’s taking one role… I mean, he’s just working nonstop. I want to make sure he can relax and enjoy it a little bit.” RDJ has made a whopping 16 films in five years.
We’re not sure personally that the character of Tony Stark was actually a hyper-caffeinated motor mouthed, we have to admit that “Iron Man” does look good for a super-hero film and while we’ve dogged RDJ for playing himself over and over again (see, hyper-caffeinated motormouth), we will remind everyone about his great work in the incredibly enjoyable “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” (in 2005, back when watching RDJ play RDJ wasn’t totally insufferably predictable yet).
Either way, dude has had a hard life, paid his dues and inexplicably crawled back out of the muck, so let him enjoy his comeback.