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+ "page_name": "Robert Downey Jr. and Johnny Depp: How would you get 'em together ...",
+ "page_url": "https://ew.com/article/2009/12/28/robert-downey-jr-johnny-depp-project/",
+ "page_snippet": "As we were leaving Sherlock Holmes yesterday,I asked my 62-year-old mother how awesome it would be to see Robert Downey Jr. star in a movie with Johnny Depp. Her response \u2014 \u201cI would need a tranquilizer\u201d \u2014 wasn\u2019t exactly a surprise. She enjoyed Sherlock Holmes and Johnny Depp\u2019s recent ...As we were leaving Sherlock Holmes yesterday,I asked my 62-year-old mother how awesome it would be to see Robert Downey Jr. star in a movie with Johnny Depp. Her response \u2014 \u201cI would need a tranquilizer\u201d \u2014 wasn\u2019t exactly a surprise. She enjoyed Sherlock Holmes and Johnny Depp\u2019s recent Sexiest Man Alive People cover equally. But it does show the kind of massive appeal a film costarring Downey and Depp would have. Her response \u2014 \u201cI would need a tranquilizer\u201d \u2014 wasn\u2019t exactly a surprise. She enjoyed Sherlock Holmes and Johnny Depp\u2019s recent Sexiest Man Alive People cover equally. But it does show the kind of massive appeal a film costarring Downey and Depp would have. So, PopWatchers, let\u2019s pitch us some plots\u2026 Photo Credit: Depp: Solarpix/PR Photos; Downey: Jamie McCarthy/Wireimage.com ... Robert Downey Jr.'s allegedly gay 'Sherlock Holmes.' Seriously?! Though it\u2019s tempting to give them a bromance \u00e0 la Holmes and Watson, they should initially hate each other \u00e0 la Tango and Cash (another reference that I\u2019m sure would appeal to the duo). Part of me wants it to be a period film, which would give Downey and Depp even more room to play; part of me wants it set today, but penned by Steve Martin with the heightened reality ofRoxanne and LA Story.",
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Robert John Downey Jr. (born April 4, 1965)[1] is an American actor. His films as a leading actor have grossed over $14 billion worldwide, making him one of the highest-grossing actors of all time. Downey's career has been characterized by some early success, a period of drug-related problems and run-ins with the law, and a surge in popular and commercial success in the 2000s.[2] In 2008, Downey was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. From 2013 to 2015, he was listed by Forbes as Hollywood's highest-paid actor.\n
Robert John Downey Jr. was born on April 4, 1965, in Manhattan, New York City, the younger of two children.[4] His father, Robert Downey Sr., was a filmmaker, while his mother, Elsie Ann (n\u00e9e Ford), was an actress who appeared in Downey Sr.'s films.[5] Downey's father was of half Lithuanian Jewish, one-quarter Hungarian Jewish, and one-quarter Irish descent, while Downey's mother had Scottish, German, and Swiss ancestry.[6][7][8] Downey moved often, mainly due to his father's film projects, living in places such as Woodstock, New York, London, New Mexico, California, Connecticut and Greenwich Village.[9] The family experienced both periods of near-poverty and wealth, depending on the success of the films.[10]\n
As a child, Downey was \"surrounded by drugs\".[11] His father was a drug addict and his mother was an alcoholic.[12] His father allowed him to use drugs at a young age; he said that he gave Downey marijuana for the first time at age six, and that Downey also \"might have had a little coke\" as a child.[13] His father later said that he regretted it.[4] Downey stated that he and his father did drugs together for the first time when he was eight, and that drug use became an emotional bond between him and his father: \"When my dad and I would do drugs together, it was like him trying to express his love for me in the only way he knew how\".[14][15][16]\n
During his childhood, Downey had minor roles in his father's films. He made his acting debut at the age of five, playing a sick puppy in the absurdist comedy film Pound (1970), and then at seven appeared in the surrealistWestern film Greaser's Palace (1972).[7] He went to Stagedoor Manor, a summer acting camp in upstate New York, when he was eleven and twelve.[10] Downey's parents divorced in 1977, when he was twelve. He went and lived with his mother, in a fifth-floor walk up in New York, as she \"needed\" him after the divorce, while his sister went to live with their father in California.[14] After a few years Downey went to live with his father and began attending Santa Monica High School, but dropped out in 1982.[17] At the age of 17 he moved back to New York to pursue an acting career full-time.[18]\n
Downey worked a number of different jobs to support himself while going to auditions, including clearing tables at Central Falls restaurant, working in a shoe store, and performing as \"living art\" at the nightclub Area.[19][20][21] Meanwhile, Downey got a few parts in local theatre and off-Broadway productions. He got his first film role in the 1983 film Baby It\u2019s You, however his scenes ended up being cut.[22][23]\n
Downey began building upon theater roles, making his debut on stage in 1983 at the Geva Theatre Center in Alms for the Middle Class, for a three-week run.[24] He also performed in the short-lived off-Broadway musical American Passion at the Joyce Theater in 1983, produced by Norman Lear.[25] In 1984, Downey got a part in the film Firstborn, where he met Sarah Jessica Parker, and the pair started dating.[26] In 1985, he was part of the new, younger cast hired for Saturday Night Live. Downey has said that Anthony Michael Hall, who he had met and become friends with on the set of his Weird Science, had helped him get the audition.[27] However, he and most of the new crew were dropped and replaced following a year of poor ratings and criticism of the new cast's comedic talents.[18]Rolling Stone magazine named Downey the worst SNL cast member in its entire run, stating that the \"Downey Fail sums up everything that makes SNL great\".[28]\n
That same year, Downey had a dramatic acting breakthrough when he played James Spader's sidekick in Tuff Turf and then a bully in John Hughes's Weird Science. Molly Ringwald wanted him for the role of Duckie in John Hughes's film Pretty in Pink (1986), but the part went to Jon Cryer.[29][30] He went on to star with Ringwald in his first lead role in The Pick-up Artist (1987). Because of these and other coming-of-age films Downey did during the 1980s, he is sometimes named as a member of the Brat Pack.[18][31] Downey moved to Hollywood and lived with fellow actors Billy Zane, who later appeared with Downey in Only You (1994), Sarah Jessica Parker and Kiefer Sutherland, who starred with Downey in 1969 (1988).[32][33]\n
In 1987, Downey played Julian Wells, a drug-addicted rich boy whose life rapidly spirals out of his control, in the film version of the Bret Easton Ellis novel Less than Zero. His performance, described by Janet Maslin in The New York Times as \"desperately moving\",[34] was widely praised, though Downey has said that for him \"the role was like the ghost of Christmas Future\" since his drug habit resulted in his becoming an \"exaggeration of the character\" in real life.[35] Soon after completing the film, Downey went into rehab for the first time; the episode would be followed by a number of interventions and stints in rehab over the next decade prior to his 1996 arrest.[36][37]Zero drove Downey into films with bigger budgets and names, such as Chances Are (1989) with Cybill Shepherd and Ryan O'Neal, Air America (1990) with Mel Gibson, and Soapdish (1991) with Sally Field, Kevin Kline, Cathy Moriarty, and Whoopi Goldberg.[38][39][40]\n
1996\u20132001: Addiction-related setbacks and Ally McBeal
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From 1996 through 2001, Downey was arrested several times on charges related to drugs including cocaine, heroin, and marijuana.[53] He went through drug treatment programs and time in county jail and prison. He explained in 1999 to a judge: \"It's like I have a shotgun in my mouth, and I've got my finger on the trigger, and I like the taste of the gun metal.\" He said he had been addicted to drugs since the age of eight due to the fact that his father had been giving them to him.[54]\n
In early 1996, after becoming increasingly concerned for Downey, Sean Penn and Dennis Quaid knocked his door down, took his keys and took him to a rehab centre in Tucson, however Downey escaped and checked himself out a few days later.[36] In June 1996, Downey was arrested for possession of heroin, cocaine, crack and an unloaded .357 Magnum handgun while he was speeding down Sunset Boulevard. A month later, while on parole, he wandered into a neighbor's home through the unlocked front door while under the influence of a controlled substance and fell asleep in one of the beds.[55][56] The family refused to press trespassing charges.[37] The tape of the neighbor's 911 call was made available online, and it became known as the \"goldilocks incident\".[57] In November 1996, after spending time in court ordered rehab, he received a further six-months of live-in rehab, three years' probation and was ordered to undergo compulsory drug testing.[37] In 1997, he missed one of the court-ordered drug tests and had to spend six months in the Los Angeles County jail.[58] After being released, he went into a court-ordered 120-day rehab program.[37]\n
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Mugshot from his arrest in August 1999
Mugshot from his arrest in April 2001
\n
In 1999, after being clean during the shooting of Wonder Boys, Downey relapsed. During this time he was struggling with legal bills and had lost his house in Malibu.[36] After Downey missed another required drug test in 1999, he was arrested again. Despite Downey's lawyer, Robert Shapiro, assembling the same team of lawyers that had successfully defended O. J. Simpson during his criminal trial for murder,[54] Downey was sentenced to a three-year prison term at the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison in Corcoran, California.[59] At the time of the arrest, all of Downey's film projects had wrapped and were close to release. He had been hired to provide the voice of the devil on the NBC animated television series God, the Devil and Bob, but was fired when he failed to attend rehearsals.[59][60]\n
Before the end of his first season on Ally McBeal, Downey was arrested on Thanksgiving in 2000, when his room at Merv Griffin's Hotel and Givenchy Spa in Palm Springs, California, was searched by the police, who were responding to an anonymous 911 call. Downey was under the influence of a controlled substance and in possession of cocaine and Valium.[65][66]Rolling Stone later ran a six-page investigation into the weekend's events.[36] Despite the fact that, if convicted, he would have faced a prison sentence of up to four years and eight months, he signed on to appear in at least eight more Ally McBeal episodes.[67]\n
In April 2001, while Downey was on parole, a Los Angeles police officer found him wandering barefoot in Culver City. He was arrested for suspicion of being under the influence of drugs, but was released a few hours later,[68] even though tests showed he had cocaine in his system.[69] After this last arrest, Ally McBeal executives ordered last-minute rewrites and reshoots and fired Downey, despite the fact that Downey's character had resuscitated Ally McBeal's ratings.[70] The Culver City arrest also cost him a role in the high-profile film America's Sweethearts,[69] and the subsequent incarceration prompted Gibson to cancel his Hamlet production. In July 2001, Downey pleaded no contest to the Palm Springs charges, avoiding jail time. Instead, he was sent into drug rehabilitation and received three years of probation, benefiting from California Proposition 36, which had been passed the year before with the aim of helping nonviolent drug offenders overcome their addictions instead of sending them to jail.[4][71] Downey spent a year at the court-ordered drug-treatment facility. By this time Downey was homeless, too much of an insurance liability to be employable and on the verge of bankruptcy.[36]\n
The book Conversations with Woody Allen reports that director Woody Allen wanted to cast Downey and Winona Ryder in his film Melinda and Melinda in 2003 but was unable to do so because he could not get insurance on them. Allen stated, \"We couldn't get bonded. The completion bonding companies would not bond the picture unless we could insure them. We were heartbroken because I had worked with Winona before [on Celebrity] and thought she was perfect for this and wanted to work with her again. And I had always wanted to work with Bob Downey and always thought he was a huge talent.\"[72]\n
In a December 18, 2000, article for People magazine titled \"Bad to Worse\", Downey's stepmother Rosemary told author Alex Tresnlowski that Downey had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder \"a few years ago\" and added that this was \"the reason he has a hard time staying sober. What hasn't been tried is medication and intensive psychotherapy\".[73] In the same article, Dr. Manijeh Nikakhtar, a Los Angeles psychiatrist and co-author of Addiction or Self-Medication: The Truth, claimed she received a letter from Downey in 1999, during his time at Corcoran II, asking for advice on his condition. She discovered that \"no one had done a complete [psychiatric] evaluation [on him] ... I asked him flat out if he thought he was bipolar, and he said, 'Oh yeah. There are times I spend a lot of money and I'm hyperactive, and there are other times I'm down.'\"[73]\n
In an article for the March 2007 issue of Esquire, Downey stated that he wanted to address \"this whole thing about the bipolar\" after receiving a phone call from \"the Bipolar Association\" asking him about being bipolar. When Downey denied he had ever said he was bipolar, the caller quoted the People article, to which Downey replied, \"'No! Dr. Malibusian said [I said I was bipolar] ... ', and they go, 'Well, it's been written, so we're going to quote it.'\"[74] Downey flatly denied being \"depressed or manic\" and said that previous attempts to diagnose him with any kind of psychiatric or mood disorder have always been skewed because \"the guy I was seeing didn't know I was smokin' crack in his bathroom. You can't make a diagnosis until somebody's sober.\"[74]\n
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2001\u20132007: Resurgence
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After five years of substance abuse, arrests, rehabilitation, and relapse, Downey was ready to work toward a full recovery from drugs and return to his career. In discussing his failed attempts to control his addictive behavior in the past, Downey told Oprah Winfrey in November 2004 that \"when someone says, 'I really wonder if maybe I should go to rehab?' Well, uh, you're a wreck, you just lost your job, and your wife left you. Uh, you might want to give it a shot.\"[75] He added that after his last arrest in April 2001, when he knew he would likely be facing another stint in prison or another form of incarceration such as court-ordered rehab, \"I said, 'You know what? I don't think I can continue doing this.' And I reached out for help, and I ran with it. You can reach out for help in kind of a half-assed way and you'll get it and you won't take advantage of it. It's not that difficult to overcome these seemingly ghastly problems ... what's hard is to decide to do it.\"[75]\n
Downey got his first post-rehabilitation acting job in August 2001, lip-syncing in the video for Elton John's single \"I Want Love\".[76] Video director Sam Taylor-Wood shot 16 takes of the video and used the last one because, according to John, Downey looked completely relaxed and \"the way he underplays it is fantastic\".[77] Downey was able to return to the big screen after Mel Gibson, who had been a close friend to Downey since both had co-starred in Air America, paid Downey's insurance bond for the 2003 film The Singing Detective (directed by his Back to School co-star Keith Gordon).[3] Gibson's gamble paved the way for Downey's comeback and Downey returned to mainstream films in the mid-2000s with Gothika, for which producer Joel Silver withheld 40% of Downey's salary until after production wrapped as insurance against his addictive behavior. Similar clauses became standard in his contracts throughout the 2000s.[78] Silver, who was getting closer to Downey as he dated his assistant Susan Levin (later Susan Downey), also got the actor the leading role in the comedy thrillerKiss Kiss Bang Bang, the directorial debut of screenwriter Shane Black.[79]\n
On November 23, 2004, Downey released his debut musical album, The Futurist, on Sony Classical, for which he designed the cover art and designed the track listing label on the CD with his son Indio.[82] The album received mixed reviews,[83][84] but Downey stated in 2006 that he probably will not do another album, as he felt that the energy he put into doing the album was not compensated.[85] In 2006, Downey returned to television when he did voice acting on Family Guy in the episode \"The Fat Guy Strangler\". Downey had previously telephoned the show's production staff and asked if he could produce or assist in an episode creation, as his son Indio is a fan of the show. The producers of the show accepted the offer and created the character of Patrick Pewterschmidt, Lois Griffin's long lost, mentally disturbed brother, for Downey.[86] \n
Downey signed on with publishers HarperCollins to write a memoir, which in 2006, was already being billed as a \"candid look at the highs and lows of his life and career\". In 2008, however, Downey returned his advance to the publishers, and canceled the book without further comment.[87] In 2007, Downey appeared in David Fincher's mystery thriller Zodiac, which was based on a true story. He played the role of San Francisco Chronicle journalist Paul Avery, who was reporting the Zodiac Killer case.[88]\n
Despite all of the critical success Downey had experienced throughout his career, he had not appeared in a \"blockbuster\" film. That changed in 2008 when Downey starred in two critically and commercially successful films, Iron Man and Tropic Thunder. In the article Ben Stiller wrote for Downey's entry in the 2008 edition of The Time 100, he offered an observation on Downey's commercially successful summer at the box office:\n
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Yes, Downey is Iron Man, but he really is Actor Man ... In the realm where box office is irrelevant and talent is king, the realm that actually means something, he has always ruled, and finally this summer he gets to have his cake and let us eat him up all the way to the multiplex, where his mastery is in full effect.
\u2014 Ben Stiller, The 2008 Time 100, entry No. 60, \"Robert Downey Jr.\"[89]
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In 2007, Downey was cast as the title character in the film Iron Man,[90] with director Jon Favreau explaining the choice by stating: \"Downey wasn't the most obvious choice, but he understood what makes the character tick. He found a lot of his own life experience in 'Tony Stark'.\"[91] Favreau insisted on having Downey as he repeatedly claimed that Downey would be to Iron Man what Johnny Depp is to the Pirates of the Caribbean series: a lead actor who could both elevate the quality of the film and increase the public's interest in it.[55][92][93][94] For the role, Downey had to gain more than 20 pounds (9 kilograms) of muscle in five months to look like he \"had the power to forge iron\".[95]\n
Iron Man was released worldwide between April 30 and May 3, 2008, grossing over $585 million worldwide[96] and receiving rave reviews which cited Downey's performance as a highlight of the film.[97][98][99] By October 2008, Downey had agreed to star in two Iron Man sequels, as part of the Iron Man franchise, as well as The Avengers, featuring the superhero team that Stark joins, based on Marvel's comic book series The Avengers.[100] He first reprised the role in a small appearance as Iron Man's alter ego Tony Stark in the 2008 film The Incredible Hulk, as a part of Marvel Studios' depicting the same Marvel Universe on film by providing continuity among the movies.[101]\n
After Iron Man, Downey appeared alongside Ben Stiller and Jack Black in the Stiller-directed Tropic Thunder. The three actors play a Hollywood archetype – with Downey playing self-absorbed multi-Oscar-winning Australian method actor Kirk Lazarus – as they star in an extremely expensive Vietnam-era film called Tropic Thunder. Lazarus undergoes a \"controversial skin pigmentation procedure\" in order to take on the role of African-American platoon sergeant Lincoln Osiris, which required Downey to wear dark makeup and a wig. Both Stiller and Downey feared Downey's portrayal of the character could become controversial:\n
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Stiller says that he and Downey always stayed focused on the fact that they were skewering insufferable actors, not African Americans. \"I was trying to push it as far as you can within reality\", Stiller explains. \"I had no idea how people would respond to it\". Stiller screened a rough cut of the film [in March 2008] and it scored high with African Americans. He was relieved at the reaction. \"It seems people really embrace it\", he said.[102]
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When asked by Harry Smith on CBS's The Early Show who his model was for Lazarus, Downey laughed before responding, \"Sadly, my sorry-ass self.\"[103]\n
Released in the United States on August 13, 2008, Tropic Thunder received good reviews with 83% of reviews positive and an average normalized score of 71, according to the review aggregator websites Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, respectively.[104][105] It earned US$26 million in its North American opening weekend and retained the number one position for its first three weekends of release. The film grossed $180 million in theaters before its release on home video on November 18, 2008. Downey was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Lazarus.[106]\n
Opening in late April 2009 was a film Downey finished in mid-2008, The Soloist. The film was delayed from a November 2008 release by Paramount Pictures due to the studio's tight end-of-year release schedule.[107] Critics who had seen the film in 2008 were mentioning it as a possible Academy Award candidate.[108] Downey picked up an Academy Award nomination for the 2008 release year for his role in Tropic Thunder.[109]\n
The first role Downey accepted after Iron Man was Sherlock Holmes in Guy Ritchie's adaptation Sherlock Holmes. Warner Bros. released it on December 25, 2009.[110] The film set several box office records in the United States for a Christmas Day release, beating the previous record-holder, 2008's Marley & Me, by nearly $10 million, and finished second to Avatar in a record-setting Christmas weekend box office. Sherlock Holmes ended up being the 8th highest-grossing film of 2009.[111][112] When Downey won the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for his role as Sherlock Holmes, he noted in his acceptance speech that he had prepared no remarks because \"Susan Downey told me that Matt Damon was going to win so don't bother preparing a speech\".[113]\n
Downey returned as Tony Stark in the first of two planned sequels to Iron Man, Iron Man 2, which released in May 2010. Iron Man 2 grossed over $623 million worldwide, becoming the 7th highest-grossing film of 2010.[114] Downey's other commercial film release of 2010 was the comedy road film, Due Date. The movie, co-starring Zach Galifianakis, was released in November 2010[115] and grossed over $211M worldwide, making it the 36th highest-grossing movie of 2010.[116] Downey's sole 2011 film credit was Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, which opened worldwide on December 16, 2011.[117]\n
Downey's most commercially successful recording venture to date (combining sales and radio airplay) has been his remake of the 1973 Joni Mitchell Christmas song \"River\", which was included on the Ally McBeal tie-in album Ally McBeal: A Very Ally Christmas, released in 2000; Downey's character Larry Paul performs the song in the Ally McBeal episode \"Tis the Season\".[133]\n
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Business
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On June 14, 2010, Downey and his wife Susan opened their own production company called Team Downey. Their first project was The Judge.[134] In 2024, Downey launched a coffee company named Happy with Craig Dubitsky.[135]\n
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Personal life
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Relationships and family
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Downey started dating actress Sarah Jessica Parker in 1984 after meeting her on the set of Firstborn. They were both 18 and moved in together after eight weeks of dating.[26] The couple separated eight years later in 1991 due to his drug addiction.[136]\n
Downey married actress and singer Deborah Falconer on May 29, 1992, after a 42-day courtship.[137] Their son was born in September 1993.[138] The strain on their marriage from Downey's repeated trips to rehab and jail finally reached a breaking point; in 2001, in the midst of Downey's last arrest and sentencing to an extended stay in rehab, Falconer left Downey and took their son with her.[137] Downey and Falconer finalized their divorce on April 26, 2004.\n
In 2003, Downey met producer Susan Downey (n\u00e9e Levin), an executive vice-president of production at Joel Silver's film company, Silver Pictures, on the set of Gothika.[3] Though Susan twice turned down his romantic advances, she and Downey did quietly strike up a romance during production.[139] Despite Susan's worries that the romance would not last after the completion of shooting given that \"he's an actor; I have a real job\",[139] the couple's relationship continued after production wrapped on Gothika, and Downey proposed to Susan on the night before her thirtieth birthday.[139] In August 2005, the couple were married, in a Jewish ceremony, at Amagansett, New York.[140][141] A tattoo on one of his biceps reads \"Suzie Q\" in tribute to her.[142] The Downeys' first child, a son, was born in February 2012,[143] and their second, a daughter, was born in November 2014.[144][145][146]\n
Downey has been a close friend of Mel Gibson since they starred in Air America. Downey defended Gibson during the controversy surrounding The Passion of the Christ, and said \"nobody's perfect\" in reference to Gibson's 2006 DUI.[147] Gibson said of Downey: \"He was one of the first people to call and offer the hand of friendship. He just said, 'Hey, welcome to the club. Let's go see what we can do to work on ourselves.'\"[148] In October 2011, Downey was being honored at the 25th American Cinematheque Awards; Downey chose Gibson to present him with his award for his life's work and used his air time to say a few kind words about Gibson and explain why he chose him to present the award.[149]\n
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Sobriety
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Downey says he has been drug-free since July 2003[150] and credited his wife with helping him overcome his drug and alcohol habits, along with his family, therapy, meditation, twelve-step recovery programs, yoga, and the practice of Wing Chunkung fu,[35] the martial art he learned from Eric Oram, who is also a fight consultant in several of Downey's movies.[151][152] Oram was Downey's personal fight coordinator in Avengers: Age of Ultron and Captain America: Civil War.[153] In December 2015, Downey was chosen as one of 91 people to be pardoned by the Governor of CaliforniaJerry Brown, for his prior drug offences. The pardon does not erase Downey\u2019s criminal record, but it does allow him to serve on a jury.[154][155] Oram wrote a letter in support of Downey's pardon to Governor Brown.[156] When asked on The Oprah Winfrey Show how he was able to make his sobriety stick this time, Downey said: \"It's really not that difficult to overcome these seemingly ghastly problems. What's hard is to decide to do it.\"[157]\n
Downey has described his religious beliefs as \"Jewish Buddhist\",[158] and he is reported to have consulted astrologers.[159] In the past, Downey has been interested in Christianity and the Hare Krishna movement.[158]\n
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Political views
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In a 2008 interview, Downey stated that his time in prison changed his political point of view somewhat, saying: \"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 ever since.\"[160]\n
However, when asked about the quote in a 2015 interview to promote Avengers: Age of Ultron, he denied that his previous statement reflected any longstanding beliefs on his part, and stated: \"I wouldn't say that I'm a Republican or a liberal or a Democrat.\"[161]\n
Downey serves on the board of the Anti-Recidivism Coalition, a nonprofit organisation which advocates for criminal justice reform, to reduce incarceration, improve the outcomes of formerly incarcerated individuals, and build healthier communities.[167]\n
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Environmentalism
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In January 2020, during the promotions of his film Dolittle, Downey announced that he had made the decision to adopt a vegan diet, in response to the debate about the climate crisis, stating that \"I'm a one-man carbon footprint nightmare colossus\"[168] and believes he can do his part to contribute. Downey previously announced his opening of Footprint Coalition, an organization he launched to reduce carbon footprints around the world using advanced technology.[169] The Footprint Coalition promotes technologies that protect the environment such as French insect-farming startup Ynsect,[170] the bio-based alternative to plastic manufacturer RWDC,[171] and bamboo toilet paper manufacturer Cloud Paper.[172][173]\n
In January 2024, Downey stated that he was a pescetarian and had to give up his vegan diet due to low levels of vitamin B12, calcium and iron.[174] He co-authored Cool Food: Erasing Your Carbon Footprint One Bite at a Time which advocates a low-carbon plant-based diet to reduce carbon footprint.[174][175]\n
^Ebert, Roger (April 24, 1998). \"Two Girls and a Guy\". RogerEbert.com. Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on December 26, 2019. Retrieved November 27, 2018.\n
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+ "page_name": "The Truth About Johnny Depp And Robert Downey Jr.'s Friendship ...",
+ "page_url": "https://www.nickiswift.com/896421/the-truth-about-johnny-depp-and-robert-downey-jr-s-friendship/",
+ "page_snippet": "Johnny Depp and Robert Downy Jr. came up as young A-list Hollywood stars in the 90s. As they've struggled with legal issues and addiction, they stayed close.Johnny Depp and Robert Downey Jr. are almost the same age and came up in Hollywood during the same decade. At 58, Depp is one year older than Downey. Both men have created iconic characters that spawned movie franchises. Depp stunned fans with Jack Sparrow, turning \"Pirates of the Caribbean\" into a blockbuster movie franchise. Johnny Depp and Robert Downey Jr. have been friends for many years. Downey Jr. and Depp's friendship goes back decades; they came up in Hollywood together and were known for outrageous behavior as well as issues with anger and addiction. Depp's spokesman told The New York Post that the \"Iron Man\" star FaceTimed Depp after the verdict was announced in the defamation case. We've known each other a million years. We came up through the ranks together.\" OK! reported that Downey Jr. was pushing to bring Depp on board for the third \"Sherlock Holmes\" movie. A source told the outlet, \"Bob wants Johnny on board, come hell or high water.\" But what's the truth about Depp and Downey Jr.'s friendship? ... Johnny Depp and Robert Downey Jr. have been friends for many years. Downey Jr. and Depp's friendship goes back decades; they came up in Hollywood together and were known for outrageous behavior as well as issues with anger and addiction.",
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This article contains descriptions of addiction and domestic violence.\u00a0
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Johnny Depp and Robert Downey Jr. are almost the same age and came up in Hollywood during the same decade. At 58, Depp is one year older than Downey. Both men have created iconic characters that spawned movie franchises. Depp stunned fans with Jack Sparrow, turning \"Pirates of the Caribbean\" into a blockbuster movie franchise. Downey Jr. sent fans into a frenzy as Tony Stark in \"Iron Man,\" becoming the \"father\" of the Marvel Creative Universe. Downey Jr. told Parade he was in a \"feverish-almost-like-a-waking dream\" when he prepped for \"Iron Man.\" The MCU star said, \"I just presumed that it was my destiny to build this character around all of my experiences.\"
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In an interview with Collider, Depp explained that Disney executives were unhappy with how he played Jack Sparrow in the first \"Pirates\" movie. Depp said, \"I put it to them that they were welcome to fire me or replace me if they wanted because I wasn't going to change what I had built. I believed in what I'd built, I believed in the character wholeheartedly and I felt I was onto something.\"\u00a0 CNBC reported that \"Pirates of the Caribbean\" is one of the top film franchises, earning $4.5 billion for five movies. The outlet noted that \"Iron Man\" kicked off 23 movies in 12 years for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, earning over $22 billion.
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But what's the truth about Depp and Downey Jr.'s friendship?
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Johnny Depp and Robert Downey Jr. have been friends for decades
Johnny Depp and Robert Downey Jr. have been friends for many years. Downey Jr. and Depp's friendship goes back decades; they came up in Hollywood together and were known for outrageous behavior as well as issues with anger and addiction. Depp's spokesman told The New York Post that the \"Iron Man\" star FaceTimed Depp after the verdict was announced in the defamation case. \"John, thank God it's over,\" Downey Jr. congratulated the \"Pirates of the Caribbean\" star via FaceTime.
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OK! reported the \"Avengers: End Game\" star has supported Depp through the \"Pirates\" actor's tough times. In 2020, Downey Jr. praised Depp to the outlet, \"There's nobody I admire more. We've known each other a million years. We came up through the ranks together.\" OK! reported that Downey Jr. was pushing to bring Depp on board for the third \"Sherlock Holmes\" movie. A source told the outlet, \"Bob wants Johnny on board, come hell or high water.\"
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After battling drug addiction and spending time in jail, Downey Jr.'s career was considered radioactive in the late 90s and 2000s. But he skyrocketed back to the A-list after the success of 2008's \"Iron Man,\" making Downey Jr. one of Hollywood's highest-paid actors. But the two actors have another thing in common.
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Johnny Depp and Robert Downey Jr. share troubled childhoods
The tragic story of Robert Downey Jr. could be a movie. Raised by parents who used drugs, he became addicted as a young man. In a 2014 Vanity Fair interview, the \"Iron Man\" actor revealed he shared his first joint with his dad when he was six or seven. Downey Jr. said, \"I've heard of people that had impossible-to-defend childhoods, and I say, 'You had an interesting childhood.' And occasionally it's the folks who have had the most quote-unquote interesting childhoods and the most here-come-the-sirens idiosyncratic dispositions who push [the boundaries].\"
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Depp and Downey Jr. share a violent, painful childhood in common.\u00a0People reported on Depp's childhood abuse. The actor described his mother as \"violent\" and \"cruel.\" He testified at the defamation trial, \"The verbal abuse, the psychological abuse, was almost worse than the beatings. The beatings were just physical pain. The physical pain, you learn to deal with. You learn to accept it. You learn to deal with it.\"
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Downey Jr. told People, \"The past for me was 30 years of dependency, depravity, and despair ... The present is this moment of glory for all of us. And the future...? That is always uncertain,\" he explained. \"But looking at these friends behind me \u2014 it seems like things might brighten up after all.\"
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If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go to thehotline.org.
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+ "page_name": "Robert Downey Jr. - Wikipedia",
+ "page_url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Downey_Jr.",
+ "page_snippet": "Favreau insisted on having Downey as he repeatedly claimed that Downey would be to Iron Man what Johnny Depp is to the Pirates of the Caribbean series: a lead actor who could both elevate the quality of the film and increase the public's interest in it. For the role, Downey had to gain more ...Favreau insisted on having Downey as he repeatedly claimed that Downey would be to Iron Man what Johnny Depp is to the Pirates of the Caribbean series: a lead actor who could both elevate the quality of the film and increase the public's interest in it. For the role, Downey had to gain more than 20 pounds (9 kilograms) of muscle in five months to look like he \"had the power to forge iron\". 60, \"Robert Downey Jr.\" In 2007, Downey was cast as the title character in the film Iron Man, with director Jon Favreau explaining the choice by stating: \"Downey wasn't the most obvious choice, but he understood what makes the character tick. He found a lot of his own life experience in 'Tony Stark'.\" Favreau insisted on having Downey as he repeatedly claimed that Downey would be to Iron Man what Johnny Depp is to the Pirates of the Caribbean series: a lead actor who could both elevate the quality of the film and increase the public's interest in it. Robert John Downey Jr. (born April 4, 1965) is an American actor. His films as a leading actor have grossed over $14 billion worldwide, making him one of the highest-grossing actors of all time. Downey's career has been characterized by some early success, a period of drug-related problems and run-ins with the law, and a surge in popular and commercial success in the 2000s. Robert John Downey Jr. was born on April 4, 1965, in Manhattan, New York City, the younger of two children. His father, Robert Downey Sr., was a filmmaker, while his mother, Elsie Ann (n\u00e9e Ford), was an actress who appeared in Downey Sr.'s films. Downey's father was of half Lithuanian Jewish, one-quarter Hungarian Jewish, and one-quarter Irish descent, while Downey's mother had Scottish, German, and Swiss ancestry. \u2014 Ben Stiller, The 2008 Time 100, entry No. 60, \"Robert Downey Jr.\" In 2007, Downey was cast as the title character in the film Iron Man, with director Jon Favreau explaining the choice by stating: \"Downey wasn't the most obvious choice, but he understood what makes the character tick.",
+ "page_result": "\n\n\n\nRobert Downey Jr. - Wikipedia\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nJump to content\n
Robert John Downey Jr. (born April 4, 1965)[1] is an American actor. His films as a leading actor have grossed over $14 billion worldwide, making him one of the highest-grossing actors of all time. Downey's career has been characterized by some early success, a period of drug-related problems and run-ins with the law, and a surge in popular and commercial success in the 2000s.[2] In 2008, Downey was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. From 2013 to 2015, he was listed by Forbes as Hollywood's highest-paid actor.\n
Robert John Downey Jr. was born on April 4, 1965, in Manhattan, New York City, the younger of two children.[4] His father, Robert Downey Sr., was a filmmaker, while his mother, Elsie Ann (n\u00e9e Ford), was an actress who appeared in Downey Sr.'s films.[5] Downey's father was of half Lithuanian Jewish, one-quarter Hungarian Jewish, and one-quarter Irish descent, while Downey's mother had Scottish, German, and Swiss ancestry.[6][7][8] Downey moved often, mainly due to his father's film projects, living in places such as Woodstock, New York, London, New Mexico, California, Connecticut and Greenwich Village.[9] The family experienced both periods of near-poverty and wealth, depending on the success of the films.[10]\n
As a child, Downey was \"surrounded by drugs\".[11] His father was a drug addict and his mother was an alcoholic.[12] His father allowed him to use drugs at a young age; he said that he gave Downey marijuana for the first time at age six, and that Downey also \"might have had a little coke\" as a child.[13] His father later said that he regretted it.[4] Downey stated that he and his father did drugs together for the first time when he was eight, and that drug use became an emotional bond between him and his father: \"When my dad and I would do drugs together, it was like him trying to express his love for me in the only way he knew how\".[14][15][16]\n
During his childhood, Downey had minor roles in his father's films. He made his acting debut at the age of five, playing a sick puppy in the absurdist comedy film Pound (1970), and then at seven appeared in the surrealistWestern film Greaser's Palace (1972).[7] He went to Stagedoor Manor, a summer acting camp in upstate New York, when he was eleven and twelve.[10] Downey's parents divorced in 1977, when he was twelve. He went and lived with his mother, in a fifth-floor walk up in New York, as she \"needed\" him after the divorce, while his sister went to live with their father in California.[14] After a few years Downey went to live with his father and began attending Santa Monica High School, but dropped out in 1982.[17] At the age of 17 he moved back to New York to pursue an acting career full-time.[18]\n
Downey worked a number of different jobs to support himself while going to auditions, including clearing tables at Central Falls restaurant, working in a shoe store, and performing as \"living art\" at the nightclub Area.[19][20][21] Meanwhile, Downey got a few parts in local theatre and off-Broadway productions. He got his first film role in the 1983 film Baby It\u2019s You, however his scenes ended up being cut.[22][23]\n
Downey began building upon theater roles, making his debut on stage in 1983 at the Geva Theatre Center in Alms for the Middle Class, for a three-week run.[24] He also performed in the short-lived off-Broadway musical American Passion at the Joyce Theater in 1983, produced by Norman Lear.[25] In 1984, Downey got a part in the film Firstborn, where he met Sarah Jessica Parker, and the pair started dating.[26] In 1985, he was part of the new, younger cast hired for Saturday Night Live. Downey has said that Anthony Michael Hall, who he had met and become friends with on the set of his Weird Science, had helped him get the audition.[27] However, he and most of the new crew were dropped and replaced following a year of poor ratings and criticism of the new cast's comedic talents.[18]Rolling Stone magazine named Downey the worst SNL cast member in its entire run, stating that the \"Downey Fail sums up everything that makes SNL great\".[28]\n
That same year, Downey had a dramatic acting breakthrough when he played James Spader's sidekick in Tuff Turf and then a bully in John Hughes's Weird Science. Molly Ringwald wanted him for the role of Duckie in John Hughes's film Pretty in Pink (1986), but the part went to Jon Cryer.[29][30] He went on to star with Ringwald in his first lead role in The Pick-up Artist (1987). Because of these and other coming-of-age films Downey did during the 1980s, he is sometimes named as a member of the Brat Pack.[18][31] Downey moved to Hollywood and lived with fellow actors Billy Zane, who later appeared with Downey in Only You (1994), Sarah Jessica Parker and Kiefer Sutherland, who starred with Downey in 1969 (1988).[32][33]\n
In 1987, Downey played Julian Wells, a drug-addicted rich boy whose life rapidly spirals out of his control, in the film version of the Bret Easton Ellis novel Less than Zero. His performance, described by Janet Maslin in The New York Times as \"desperately moving\",[34] was widely praised, though Downey has said that for him \"the role was like the ghost of Christmas Future\" since his drug habit resulted in his becoming an \"exaggeration of the character\" in real life.[35] Soon after completing the film, Downey went into rehab for the first time; the episode would be followed by a number of interventions and stints in rehab over the next decade prior to his 1996 arrest.[36][37]Zero drove Downey into films with bigger budgets and names, such as Chances Are (1989) with Cybill Shepherd and Ryan O'Neal, Air America (1990) with Mel Gibson, and Soapdish (1991) with Sally Field, Kevin Kline, Cathy Moriarty, and Whoopi Goldberg.[38][39][40]\n
1996\u20132001: Addiction-related setbacks and Ally McBeal
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From 1996 through 2001, Downey was arrested several times on charges related to drugs including cocaine, heroin, and marijuana.[53] He went through drug treatment programs and time in county jail and prison. He explained in 1999 to a judge: \"It's like I have a shotgun in my mouth, and I've got my finger on the trigger, and I like the taste of the gun metal.\" He said he had been addicted to drugs since the age of eight due to the fact that his father had been giving them to him.[54]\n
In early 1996, after becoming increasingly concerned for Downey, Sean Penn and Dennis Quaid knocked his door down, took his keys and took him to a rehab centre in Tucson, however Downey escaped and checked himself out a few days later.[36] In June 1996, Downey was arrested for possession of heroin, cocaine, crack and an unloaded .357 Magnum handgun while he was speeding down Sunset Boulevard. A month later, while on parole, he wandered into a neighbor's home through the unlocked front door while under the influence of a controlled substance and fell asleep in one of the beds.[55][56] The family refused to press trespassing charges.[37] The tape of the neighbor's 911 call was made available online, and it became known as the \"goldilocks incident\".[57] In November 1996, after spending time in court ordered rehab, he received a further six-months of live-in rehab, three years' probation and was ordered to undergo compulsory drug testing.[37] In 1997, he missed one of the court-ordered drug tests and had to spend six months in the Los Angeles County jail.[58] After being released, he went into a court-ordered 120-day rehab program.[37]\n
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Mugshot from his arrest in August 1999
Mugshot from his arrest in April 2001
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In 1999, after being clean during the shooting of Wonder Boys, Downey relapsed. During this time he was struggling with legal bills and had lost his house in Malibu.[36] After Downey missed another required drug test in 1999, he was arrested again. Despite Downey's lawyer, Robert Shapiro, assembling the same team of lawyers that had successfully defended O. J. Simpson during his criminal trial for murder,[54] Downey was sentenced to a three-year prison term at the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison in Corcoran, California.[59] At the time of the arrest, all of Downey's film projects had wrapped and were close to release. He had been hired to provide the voice of the devil on the NBC animated television series God, the Devil and Bob, but was fired when he failed to attend rehearsals.[59][60]\n
Before the end of his first season on Ally McBeal, Downey was arrested on Thanksgiving in 2000, when his room at Merv Griffin's Hotel and Givenchy Spa in Palm Springs, California, was searched by the police, who were responding to an anonymous 911 call. Downey was under the influence of a controlled substance and in possession of cocaine and Valium.[65][66]Rolling Stone later ran a six-page investigation into the weekend's events.[36] Despite the fact that, if convicted, he would have faced a prison sentence of up to four years and eight months, he signed on to appear in at least eight more Ally McBeal episodes.[67]\n
In April 2001, while Downey was on parole, a Los Angeles police officer found him wandering barefoot in Culver City. He was arrested for suspicion of being under the influence of drugs, but was released a few hours later,[68] even though tests showed he had cocaine in his system.[69] After this last arrest, Ally McBeal executives ordered last-minute rewrites and reshoots and fired Downey, despite the fact that Downey's character had resuscitated Ally McBeal's ratings.[70] The Culver City arrest also cost him a role in the high-profile film America's Sweethearts,[69] and the subsequent incarceration prompted Gibson to cancel his Hamlet production. In July 2001, Downey pleaded no contest to the Palm Springs charges, avoiding jail time. Instead, he was sent into drug rehabilitation and received three years of probation, benefiting from California Proposition 36, which had been passed the year before with the aim of helping nonviolent drug offenders overcome their addictions instead of sending them to jail.[4][71] Downey spent a year at the court-ordered drug-treatment facility. By this time Downey was homeless, too much of an insurance liability to be employable and on the verge of bankruptcy.[36]\n
The book Conversations with Woody Allen reports that director Woody Allen wanted to cast Downey and Winona Ryder in his film Melinda and Melinda in 2003 but was unable to do so because he could not get insurance on them. Allen stated, \"We couldn't get bonded. The completion bonding companies would not bond the picture unless we could insure them. We were heartbroken because I had worked with Winona before [on Celebrity] and thought she was perfect for this and wanted to work with her again. And I had always wanted to work with Bob Downey and always thought he was a huge talent.\"[72]\n
In a December 18, 2000, article for People magazine titled \"Bad to Worse\", Downey's stepmother Rosemary told author Alex Tresnlowski that Downey had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder \"a few years ago\" and added that this was \"the reason he has a hard time staying sober. What hasn't been tried is medication and intensive psychotherapy\".[73] In the same article, Dr. Manijeh Nikakhtar, a Los Angeles psychiatrist and co-author of Addiction or Self-Medication: The Truth, claimed she received a letter from Downey in 1999, during his time at Corcoran II, asking for advice on his condition. She discovered that \"no one had done a complete [psychiatric] evaluation [on him] ... I asked him flat out if he thought he was bipolar, and he said, 'Oh yeah. There are times I spend a lot of money and I'm hyperactive, and there are other times I'm down.'\"[73]\n
In an article for the March 2007 issue of Esquire, Downey stated that he wanted to address \"this whole thing about the bipolar\" after receiving a phone call from \"the Bipolar Association\" asking him about being bipolar. When Downey denied he had ever said he was bipolar, the caller quoted the People article, to which Downey replied, \"'No! Dr. Malibusian said [I said I was bipolar] ... ', and they go, 'Well, it's been written, so we're going to quote it.'\"[74] Downey flatly denied being \"depressed or manic\" and said that previous attempts to diagnose him with any kind of psychiatric or mood disorder have always been skewed because \"the guy I was seeing didn't know I was smokin' crack in his bathroom. You can't make a diagnosis until somebody's sober.\"[74]\n
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2001\u20132007: Resurgence
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After five years of substance abuse, arrests, rehabilitation, and relapse, Downey was ready to work toward a full recovery from drugs and return to his career. In discussing his failed attempts to control his addictive behavior in the past, Downey told Oprah Winfrey in November 2004 that \"when someone says, 'I really wonder if maybe I should go to rehab?' Well, uh, you're a wreck, you just lost your job, and your wife left you. Uh, you might want to give it a shot.\"[75] He added that after his last arrest in April 2001, when he knew he would likely be facing another stint in prison or another form of incarceration such as court-ordered rehab, \"I said, 'You know what? I don't think I can continue doing this.' And I reached out for help, and I ran with it. You can reach out for help in kind of a half-assed way and you'll get it and you won't take advantage of it. It's not that difficult to overcome these seemingly ghastly problems ... what's hard is to decide to do it.\"[75]\n
Downey got his first post-rehabilitation acting job in August 2001, lip-syncing in the video for Elton John's single \"I Want Love\".[76] Video director Sam Taylor-Wood shot 16 takes of the video and used the last one because, according to John, Downey looked completely relaxed and \"the way he underplays it is fantastic\".[77] Downey was able to return to the big screen after Mel Gibson, who had been a close friend to Downey since both had co-starred in Air America, paid Downey's insurance bond for the 2003 film The Singing Detective (directed by his Back to School co-star Keith Gordon).[3] Gibson's gamble paved the way for Downey's comeback and Downey returned to mainstream films in the mid-2000s with Gothika, for which producer Joel Silver withheld 40% of Downey's salary until after production wrapped as insurance against his addictive behavior. Similar clauses became standard in his contracts throughout the 2000s.[78] Silver, who was getting closer to Downey as he dated his assistant Susan Levin (later Susan Downey), also got the actor the leading role in the comedy thrillerKiss Kiss Bang Bang, the directorial debut of screenwriter Shane Black.[79]\n
On November 23, 2004, Downey released his debut musical album, The Futurist, on Sony Classical, for which he designed the cover art and designed the track listing label on the CD with his son Indio.[82] The album received mixed reviews,[83][84] but Downey stated in 2006 that he probably will not do another album, as he felt that the energy he put into doing the album was not compensated.[85] In 2006, Downey returned to television when he did voice acting on Family Guy in the episode \"The Fat Guy Strangler\". Downey had previously telephoned the show's production staff and asked if he could produce or assist in an episode creation, as his son Indio is a fan of the show. The producers of the show accepted the offer and created the character of Patrick Pewterschmidt, Lois Griffin's long lost, mentally disturbed brother, for Downey.[86] \n
Downey signed on with publishers HarperCollins to write a memoir, which in 2006, was already being billed as a \"candid look at the highs and lows of his life and career\". In 2008, however, Downey returned his advance to the publishers, and canceled the book without further comment.[87] In 2007, Downey appeared in David Fincher's mystery thriller Zodiac, which was based on a true story. He played the role of San Francisco Chronicle journalist Paul Avery, who was reporting the Zodiac Killer case.[88]\n
Despite all of the critical success Downey had experienced throughout his career, he had not appeared in a \"blockbuster\" film. That changed in 2008 when Downey starred in two critically and commercially successful films, Iron Man and Tropic Thunder. In the article Ben Stiller wrote for Downey's entry in the 2008 edition of The Time 100, he offered an observation on Downey's commercially successful summer at the box office:\n
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Yes, Downey is Iron Man, but he really is Actor Man ... In the realm where box office is irrelevant and talent is king, the realm that actually means something, he has always ruled, and finally this summer he gets to have his cake and let us eat him up all the way to the multiplex, where his mastery is in full effect.
\u2014 Ben Stiller, The 2008 Time 100, entry No. 60, \"Robert Downey Jr.\"[89]
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In 2007, Downey was cast as the title character in the film Iron Man,[90] with director Jon Favreau explaining the choice by stating: \"Downey wasn't the most obvious choice, but he understood what makes the character tick. He found a lot of his own life experience in 'Tony Stark'.\"[91] Favreau insisted on having Downey as he repeatedly claimed that Downey would be to Iron Man what Johnny Depp is to the Pirates of the Caribbean series: a lead actor who could both elevate the quality of the film and increase the public's interest in it.[55][92][93][94] For the role, Downey had to gain more than 20 pounds (9 kilograms) of muscle in five months to look like he \"had the power to forge iron\".[95]\n
Iron Man was released worldwide between April 30 and May 3, 2008, grossing over $585 million worldwide[96] and receiving rave reviews which cited Downey's performance as a highlight of the film.[97][98][99] By October 2008, Downey had agreed to star in two Iron Man sequels, as part of the Iron Man franchise, as well as The Avengers, featuring the superhero team that Stark joins, based on Marvel's comic book series The Avengers.[100] He first reprised the role in a small appearance as Iron Man's alter ego Tony Stark in the 2008 film The Incredible Hulk, as a part of Marvel Studios' depicting the same Marvel Universe on film by providing continuity among the movies.[101]\n
After Iron Man, Downey appeared alongside Ben Stiller and Jack Black in the Stiller-directed Tropic Thunder. The three actors play a Hollywood archetype – with Downey playing self-absorbed multi-Oscar-winning Australian method actor Kirk Lazarus – as they star in an extremely expensive Vietnam-era film called Tropic Thunder. Lazarus undergoes a \"controversial skin pigmentation procedure\" in order to take on the role of African-American platoon sergeant Lincoln Osiris, which required Downey to wear dark makeup and a wig. Both Stiller and Downey feared Downey's portrayal of the character could become controversial:\n
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Stiller says that he and Downey always stayed focused on the fact that they were skewering insufferable actors, not African Americans. \"I was trying to push it as far as you can within reality\", Stiller explains. \"I had no idea how people would respond to it\". Stiller screened a rough cut of the film [in March 2008] and it scored high with African Americans. He was relieved at the reaction. \"It seems people really embrace it\", he said.[102]
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When asked by Harry Smith on CBS's The Early Show who his model was for Lazarus, Downey laughed before responding, \"Sadly, my sorry-ass self.\"[103]\n
Released in the United States on August 13, 2008, Tropic Thunder received good reviews with 83% of reviews positive and an average normalized score of 71, according to the review aggregator websites Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, respectively.[104][105] It earned US$26 million in its North American opening weekend and retained the number one position for its first three weekends of release. The film grossed $180 million in theaters before its release on home video on November 18, 2008. Downey was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Lazarus.[106]\n
Opening in late April 2009 was a film Downey finished in mid-2008, The Soloist. The film was delayed from a November 2008 release by Paramount Pictures due to the studio's tight end-of-year release schedule.[107] Critics who had seen the film in 2008 were mentioning it as a possible Academy Award candidate.[108] Downey picked up an Academy Award nomination for the 2008 release year for his role in Tropic Thunder.[109]\n
The first role Downey accepted after Iron Man was Sherlock Holmes in Guy Ritchie's adaptation Sherlock Holmes. Warner Bros. released it on December 25, 2009.[110] The film set several box office records in the United States for a Christmas Day release, beating the previous record-holder, 2008's Marley & Me, by nearly $10 million, and finished second to Avatar in a record-setting Christmas weekend box office. Sherlock Holmes ended up being the 8th highest-grossing film of 2009.[111][112] When Downey won the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for his role as Sherlock Holmes, he noted in his acceptance speech that he had prepared no remarks because \"Susan Downey told me that Matt Damon was going to win so don't bother preparing a speech\".[113]\n
Downey returned as Tony Stark in the first of two planned sequels to Iron Man, Iron Man 2, which released in May 2010. Iron Man 2 grossed over $623 million worldwide, becoming the 7th highest-grossing film of 2010.[114] Downey's other commercial film release of 2010 was the comedy road film, Due Date. The movie, co-starring Zach Galifianakis, was released in November 2010[115] and grossed over $211M worldwide, making it the 36th highest-grossing movie of 2010.[116] Downey's sole 2011 film credit was Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, which opened worldwide on December 16, 2011.[117]\n
Downey's most commercially successful recording venture to date (combining sales and radio airplay) has been his remake of the 1973 Joni Mitchell Christmas song \"River\", which was included on the Ally McBeal tie-in album Ally McBeal: A Very Ally Christmas, released in 2000; Downey's character Larry Paul performs the song in the Ally McBeal episode \"Tis the Season\".[133]\n
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Business
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On June 14, 2010, Downey and his wife Susan opened their own production company called Team Downey. Their first project was The Judge.[134] In 2024, Downey launched a coffee company named Happy with Craig Dubitsky.[135]\n
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Personal life
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Relationships and family
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Downey started dating actress Sarah Jessica Parker in 1984 after meeting her on the set of Firstborn. They were both 18 and moved in together after eight weeks of dating.[26] The couple separated eight years later in 1991 due to his drug addiction.[136]\n
Downey married actress and singer Deborah Falconer on May 29, 1992, after a 42-day courtship.[137] Their son was born in September 1993.[138] The strain on their marriage from Downey's repeated trips to rehab and jail finally reached a breaking point; in 2001, in the midst of Downey's last arrest and sentencing to an extended stay in rehab, Falconer left Downey and took their son with her.[137] Downey and Falconer finalized their divorce on April 26, 2004.\n
In 2003, Downey met producer Susan Downey (n\u00e9e Levin), an executive vice-president of production at Joel Silver's film company, Silver Pictures, on the set of Gothika.[3] Though Susan twice turned down his romantic advances, she and Downey did quietly strike up a romance during production.[139] Despite Susan's worries that the romance would not last after the completion of shooting given that \"he's an actor; I have a real job\",[139] the couple's relationship continued after production wrapped on Gothika, and Downey proposed to Susan on the night before her thirtieth birthday.[139] In August 2005, the couple were married, in a Jewish ceremony, at Amagansett, New York.[140][141] A tattoo on one of his biceps reads \"Suzie Q\" in tribute to her.[142] The Downeys' first child, a son, was born in February 2012,[143] and their second, a daughter, was born in November 2014.[144][145][146]\n
Downey has been a close friend of Mel Gibson since they starred in Air America. Downey defended Gibson during the controversy surrounding The Passion of the Christ, and said \"nobody's perfect\" in reference to Gibson's 2006 DUI.[147] Gibson said of Downey: \"He was one of the first people to call and offer the hand of friendship. He just said, 'Hey, welcome to the club. Let's go see what we can do to work on ourselves.'\"[148] In October 2011, Downey was being honored at the 25th American Cinematheque Awards; Downey chose Gibson to present him with his award for his life's work and used his air time to say a few kind words about Gibson and explain why he chose him to present the award.[149]\n
\n
Sobriety
\n
Downey says he has been drug-free since July 2003[150] and credited his wife with helping him overcome his drug and alcohol habits, along with his family, therapy, meditation, twelve-step recovery programs, yoga, and the practice of Wing Chunkung fu,[35] the martial art he learned from Eric Oram, who is also a fight consultant in several of Downey's movies.[151][152] Oram was Downey's personal fight coordinator in Avengers: Age of Ultron and Captain America: Civil War.[153] In December 2015, Downey was chosen as one of 91 people to be pardoned by the Governor of CaliforniaJerry Brown, for his prior drug offences. The pardon does not erase Downey\u2019s criminal record, but it does allow him to serve on a jury.[154][155] Oram wrote a letter in support of Downey's pardon to Governor Brown.[156] When asked on The Oprah Winfrey Show how he was able to make his sobriety stick this time, Downey said: \"It's really not that difficult to overcome these seemingly ghastly problems. What's hard is to decide to do it.\"[157]\n
Downey has described his religious beliefs as \"Jewish Buddhist\",[158] and he is reported to have consulted astrologers.[159] In the past, Downey has been interested in Christianity and the Hare Krishna movement.[158]\n
\n
Political views
\n
In a 2008 interview, Downey stated that his time in prison changed his political point of view somewhat, saying: \"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 ever since.\"[160]\n
However, when asked about the quote in a 2015 interview to promote Avengers: Age of Ultron, he denied that his previous statement reflected any longstanding beliefs on his part, and stated: \"I wouldn't say that I'm a Republican or a liberal or a Democrat.\"[161]\n
Downey serves on the board of the Anti-Recidivism Coalition, a nonprofit organisation which advocates for criminal justice reform, to reduce incarceration, improve the outcomes of formerly incarcerated individuals, and build healthier communities.[167]\n
\n
Environmentalism
\n
In January 2020, during the promotions of his film Dolittle, Downey announced that he had made the decision to adopt a vegan diet, in response to the debate about the climate crisis, stating that \"I'm a one-man carbon footprint nightmare colossus\"[168] and believes he can do his part to contribute. Downey previously announced his opening of Footprint Coalition, an organization he launched to reduce carbon footprints around the world using advanced technology.[169] The Footprint Coalition promotes technologies that protect the environment such as French insect-farming startup Ynsect,[170] the bio-based alternative to plastic manufacturer RWDC,[171] and bamboo toilet paper manufacturer Cloud Paper.[172][173]\n
In January 2024, Downey stated that he was a pescetarian and had to give up his vegan diet due to low levels of vitamin B12, calcium and iron.[174] He co-authored Cool Food: Erasing Your Carbon Footprint One Bite at a Time which advocates a low-carbon plant-based diet to reduce carbon footprint.[174][175]\n
^Ebert, Roger (April 24, 1998). \"Two Girls and a Guy\". RogerEbert.com. Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on December 26, 2019. Retrieved November 27, 2018.\n
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