Robert Downey Jr: Iron Man was a simple business opportunity - but now I love it

The Hollywood star talks politics, Marvel and why Tony Stark may not be on the big screen for much longer
Action man: Robert Downey Jr as Iron Man
Tom Teodorczuk28 April 2016
The Weekender

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Robert Downey Jr has now portrayed Iron Man in seven Marvel Studios blockbusters. Narrative transformations are a staple of the “Marvel cinematic universe”, as fans like to call Disney’s galaxy of comic book superheroes. Yet however many times he plays the character, Downey’s own change of fortunes will always eclipse his transformation from playboy business magnate Tony Stark to leading Avenger in three Iron Man films, as well as in Captain America: Civil War, which opens tomorrow. Early word on the film is good, with The Telegraph’s Robbie Collin calling it “the franchise’s long-quested-for peak”.

A decade ago Downey, 51, was in the process of rebuilding his film career following prolonged drug and alcohol abuse, arrests, relapses and more than one stint in a California prison. During the Eighties and Nineties, Downey’s acting in indie relationship dramas and zany Hollywood comedies was overshadowed by overdoses and unreliability arising from a persistent inability to control his personal demons.

Now the only devil to be found lies in the details of Downey’s status as the highest-paid star in Hollywood. Thanks to his Marvel work and his Sherlock Holmes franchise, Hollywood trade bible Variety estimated that Downey made $80 million last year alone. His personal life has stabilised with his marriage to producer Susan Levin, his partner in the entertainment company Team Downey and with whom he has two children.

We met last year during the filming of Captain America: Civil War at Pinewood Atlanta Studios in Georgia. It’s a day off shooting for Downey and he’s wearing a pink Bruce Lee-embossed T-shirt and a pink Panama hat. “I woke up this morning and thought: pick a colour,” he says. “I was feeling it!” It makes Downey look less like Hollywood’s most lucrative actor and more like a tech executive enjoying a day at the races.

Putting aside all the personal turmoil, when Downey was filming Richard Attenborough’s Chaplin in London 25 years ago — his performance as the Little Tramp landed him a Best Actor Bafta and an Oscar nomination — I ask him how would he have reacted if he had been told he would go on to star in seven Marvel comic-book adaptations? “I would think you were a prophet and I’d need to ask some other questions. But I definitely wouldn’t have wanted an answer to all the questions.” He pauses. “It’s funny the way things work.” It’s a typical Downey reply —quick-witted, sharp and conveying a reluctance to revisit his tortured past.

Captain America: Civil War will go gangbusters. (In addition to the usual Marvel suspects, 19-year-old British actor Tom Holland makes his first appearance as Spider-Man in the film.) But like its predecessor, The Winter Soldier, it has contemporary political parallels. A showdown between a faction led by Iron Man and his allies, including Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Vision (Paul Bettany), versus Team Captain America (Chris Evans), Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) and Falcon (Anthony Mackie), raises questions about America’s place in the world, civil liberties and the UN’s global influence.

Downey has gone on record saying his prison experience turned him into a Republican. What is his take on political intervention, a key theme of the film? He answers by referencing his personal circumstances: “Every time I want to state an opinion about politics … it’s such a personal thing. Like, in my family, I have relatives who are married into Syrian families that are involved in conflict there, so it’s harder for me to be impartial. This is a bunch of personalities who in principle believe what they believe and it’s the age-old conflict of wanting to intervene.”

Captain America: Civil War European Premiere - London

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Tony Stark’s politics matter more than his own, he insists: “If I can understand why a character’s point of view is personal to them, I cease to think about the politics and I’m actually thinking about the human experience the person is having.”

Downey compliments his previous Marvel directors Joss Whedon and Shane Black. But he pointedly says shooting Civil War reminded him of the first Iron Man, made by director Jon Favreau, which it’s easy to forget that in the run-up to its release in 2008 was considered a colossal gamble. “We were out in an impact crater yesterday and a lot of people were in different suits,” he says. “I got back to thinking when we were in the high desert in 2007 and I was wearing a suit in an impact crater and going, ‘I think this might work’.”

Downey admits that the “odd” feeling never goes away when making blockbusters, that “it’s something you think is, ‘Oh, this is just a land grab’ or, ‘This is you trying to set up your grandkids to have a college fund’.” But he learned to love the Marvel Universe. “I feel there has been a circle where I’m coming back to guys who have a sensibility that reminds me of where Jon and I were the first time. The seventh time is feeling more like the first, which is weird. But I’m happy and enjoying it. By the way, I’m a little bit surprised that I’m still having a good time.”

Integral to the fact that Downey is still having a blast as Iron Man, he says, are Civil War’s sibling directors, Joe and Anthony Russo. While it’s hardly surprising that Downey should like his newest film-makers, his reasons for doing so are characteristically outlandish. “There is this interesting synergy where one of them thinks what the other forgot,” he says. “I like pairs of people — I love sisters. When my first son was born there were these two lady doctors at Cedars [hospital]. They were sitting forehead to forehead and one of them said to the other, ‘Great. We got him. Do you want to cut the cord or shall I?’ They were so calm as I was like “Ahhh! What the hell’s going on?’”

This son was Indio, born in 1993 during his first marriage to actress Deborah Falconer. Downey’s children with his second wife, Susan, are son Exton, born in 2012, and a daughter, Avri, born in 2014.

How long will Downey keep playing Iron Man? “This business opportunity has wound up being a lot more than that for me… I’ve never done a Marvel movie back-to-back before now. I’ve always gone off and done a Sherlock or a Due Date or a Judge. I thought, ‘I turned 50 and there are limitations to the credibility of these things’.”

Cue a sudden reversal of thought. “Except there isn’t.”

He cites as evidence a friend who worked on the first Terminator film with Arnold Schwarzenegger and the most recent reboot and enjoyed the latest experience as much as the first time round.

But it does seem Stark won’t be with us for too much longer: “I do feel as the universe grows and these other people come into play in these other characters, it’s kind of natural that it will run its course by the time these last couple of projects are done.”

Giving up the Marvel juggernaut — not to mention the money — and going back down to earth is bound to be hard for Downey. He compares his Iron Man outings to a quality cable TV experience. “In my own way, it’s like that. Some people seek out an experience like a True Detective or being on a series for a bunch of seasons. I never really expected Marvel was going to have the elasticity to be able to accommodate that kind of experience.”

Clearly Downey doesn’t miss his old life. But I wonder whether once the Marvel flame extinguishes, he’ll return to the smaller, edgier material of his early, tormented years and this time be able to appreciate it more.

Recently I encountered cult author Bret Easton Ellis, whose 1983 novel Less Than Zero was adapted into a 1987 movie that starred a young Downey as a Californian high school drug addict (he later dubbed the film “the ghost of Christmas future” given his own descent into substance abuse).

They haven’t kept in touch in the intervening period but to Ellis, the Robert Downey Jr story is as life-affirming as they get. “It shows there’s hope for all of us,” Ellis mused. “If he can turn it around, we all can. That’s Hollywood.”

Captain America: Civil War is in cinemas from tomorrow

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