‘Iron Man’ actor and wife adding girl to Team Downey
Photo by Ruben V. Nepales
LOS ANGELES – “She’s sitting back there – I have to be careful,” Robert Downey Jr. quipped, referring to his wife Susan, seated at the back of a hotel meeting room.
Robert and Susan are expecting next month their second child, a girl. At the same time, the couple is busy promoting “The Judge,” their first film under their production company, Team Downey.
“She’s crazy,” Robert said, casting a smiling glance at Susan, whom he met on the “Gothika” set in 2003 and married in 2005. Their first child, Exton Elias, was born in 2012.
“She’s my buddy. She’s a great mom. It never ceases to amaze me the amount of patience she has for complicated people. Susan is from the Midwest. Without generalizing too much, something just happens to people who are raised in an environment where moral psychology is important. That rubbed off on me,” he said.
Robert, however, candidly admitted, “But we can get into really serious arguments with people around us getting uncomfortable. I will forget sometimes and I will start arguing with her like the door is closed but there are eight people in the room. But it’s never about each other. It’s always about a scene or something. We are both really passionate about the creative process. It really helps that she’s pretty.”
On the girl addition to Team Downey, Robert remarked with a smile, “I didn’t know that we were going to get pregnant again so quickly. A friend said that having a daughter was like another aortic valve that you never knew existed opened up in you. So I am looking forward to that, rather than shutting down from the stress of my day job. I will love her and if she is anything like her mom, wow!”
While the soon-to-be-dad-again proclaimed, “I am almost 50” (he celebrates the milestone next year), he looked boyish and stylish in a blue suit with a refreshing touch—he wore sneakers instead.
DOWNEY takes development deals like the “Iron Man” franchise “really seriously.”
“I slept a little bit late,” said one of the finest actors of his generation. “Then I bolted up. I took off one suit and put on another. I am putting on all these nice clothes. It really is fun to dress up and go look fabulous, but boy, it is a lot of work.”
To go with that look was a pelican case which he set down on the table. Asked about the unique case, Robert opened it, as he said, “First of all, pelican cases are opening on the side now, which is a nice innovation. I have herbs, gum, sunglasses, hand sanitizers and a phone. Nowadays, that’s it.”
“I had it for a while,” said the actor known for playing Tony Stark/Iron Man. Grinning, he added, “There’s a crystal in there, too. I am pointing it toward you. And you are going to find that amazing things are going to happen to you in the next 24 hours.” Robert, I am still waiting.
Lacking stamina
As for his part in raising Exton, now 2, the dad replied, “It’s good to know your strengths. Like I am really good at bath time and certain things. But sometimes I lack the stamina that any woman on earth does—who is raising kids. It’s so good to have a partner who really knows your capacity.”
“But you want to show up whenever you can,” he stressed. “It’s about being consistent, coming from a generation when things were a little more wavy gravy and it was kind of hip to just be thinking about yourself while your kids were not necessarily thriving.”
Indio, Robert’s 21-year-old son with his ex-wife Deborah Falconer, was taken into custody on felony cocaine possession charges in June. After Robert bailed Indio out, he said in a statement, “Unfortunately, there’s a genetic component to addiction and Indio has likely inherited it.”
In saying in the statement that he believed “Indio can be another recovery success story instead of a cautionary tale,” Robert referred to his own well-publicized decades of drug abuse and jail time.
Apparently sober since 2003, Robert relaunched his career with the help of his buddy Mel Gibson, who cast him in “The Singing Detective.” His popularity soared with franchise movies: the “Iron Man,” “Sherlock Holmes” and “Avengers” blockbuster series.
“I remember 10, 20 years ago when I was like, I didn’t know that hotels had big rooms,” Robert said about the trappings of fame. “I thought every hotel room was the size of this table and that it faced the alley or the fire escape. It’s important not to be attached to stuff. Susan and I live well but we have a small house.”
“What’s important to me are my values,” he pointed out. “I would like to think that those are being trustworthy, a good steward of the things that I am charged with, being a good dad and a husband.” Chuckling, he added, “And… being a really good interviewee.”
Good work ethic
Since turning a new leaf, Robert has been working harder than before on his projects, mostly with Warner Bros., where his Team Downey has a first-look deal. “I still believe that a good work ethic, in my case, keeps you out of all kinds of trouble,” he said.
Laughing, he added, “My default is, what can I do for Warner Bros. today?” Then he clarified, “I mean that in the best sense of the word because so many people get these production deals. Five years later, it’s like what have you done? They’ve wasted millions of dollars—
their (investors’) money. But, boy, their offices look really cool. You go, wow! So I take development deals really seriously. I find it exciting for the missus and me.”
Chuckling again, he quipped, “I don’t know why but development is a mild aphrodisiac for us. It’s like catnip.”
In “The Judge,” Robert’s slick city lawyer character is estranged from the title character played by another esteemed Robert—Duvall. He emphasized that he was not at all like his character, Hank Palmer.
“I am not someone who can hold a grudge for a long time,” he said. “Maybe it’s because of brain damage but it’s easy for folks to judge. Like I read The New York Post and I am like, ’Oh, God, look at this schmuck in trouble again.’ I suppose people used to say the same things about me. But the older you get, if you get a little bit of wisdom, you are a little less likely to cast judgment on folks.”
“One of the coolest things in the movie is when you start realizing that the judge’s son is a good lawyer and he’s using that in a way to try to get his dad off the chopping block,” he said of the drama directed by David Dobkin. “Even though you are not sure if you like this guy right away, you actually start rooting for him.”
Charming actor
ROBERT Downey Jr. (left), with onscreen dad Robert Duvall, says he doesn’t hold a grudge, unlike his character in “The Judge.”
In addition to pitting talents with Duvall, Robert also tangles in the court scenes with Billy Bob Thornton, who portrays the lawyer of the other side. “I wouldn’t want to go up against Billy Bob Thornton, if he was also a lawyer. That guy is so charming that it’s nuts.”
“Kung fu,” Robert cracked when asked how he deals with nasty folks he meets. “From my experience, more often than not, even weird people are OK. The real question is, how do you deal with adversity? Because it’s so odd to always have this focus (on you), particularly now in the information age. It’s like, Justin (Bieber) is at it again—he rammed his car. Meanwhile, the guy is hounded by creeps all day long. But I think it’s on an incident-by-incident basis. As long as nobody is overtly odd or boundary-less, I’ll give them a shot.”
He announced that an installment to one of his hit franchises is definitely in the works. “We are heatedly developing a ‘Sherlock Holmes 3’ with our Warner partners,” he said. “Nowadays, we certainly don’t want to do a sequel just because we can. We want people to say, ‘We were pleasantly surprised. It was actually a worthy successor. Maybe it was the best of the three.’ It will be a tall order to do it right but that’s our intention. I feel like we have one more good one.”
As for his long-term dreams, the actor mentioned another Robert—Redford. “I would really like to do something like what Robert Redford did with Sundance. I would really like to set up some sort of institute that fosters young talent. I still want to be part of the mix whether I am entirely relevant or not.”
Personally, if he can go back in time, he would like to chat again with Richard Attenborough, who directed his Oscar-nominated performance in 1992’s “Chaplin.” The knighted filmmaker died in August.
“If I had 10 minutes and I could spend it any way I want to, I would go back to spending a little bit more time with Lord Attenborough. That’s what I would want to do.”
No regrets
He claimed he had no regrets. “I am sure I could behave in a way where I could create more regrets,” he said with a laugh. “I guess the nice thing is that I am fairly satisfied across the board right now.”
He fondly brought up the late director again. “Lord Attenborough said to me, ‘You will never wish that you spent less time with your family.’ So that really resonated with me. He said it a few years ago and then I saw him several months before he passed. In that couple of years, I really made it my business to show up for the (family) birthdays and try to have the get-togethers.”
“My wife has a very close family,” Robert said. “That’s definitely been on my mind. One of the great things about ‘The Judge’ is that people come and say, ‘Oh my God, I have to call my dad and tell him I am so sorry.’ I am like, ‘Great, you do that.’ ”
(E-mail the columnist at [email protected]. Follow him at https://twitter.com/nepalesruben.)
