ROBERT DOWNEY'S WEIRD SCIENCE OF ACTING
There's a madness to his method.
It's ninety-five degrees in Los Angeles, and Robert Downey Jr. is bobbing up
and down in his manager's pool. He has just flown in from San Francisco, where
he is playing a recent law-school graduate in True Believer, his fourteenth
film, and is worn out. When his girlfriend, Sarah Jessica Parker, who stars in
the television show A Year in the Life, dropped him off here an hour ago, he
complained about his car being broken, downed half a plate of lasagna, changed
out of an outside polka-dot shirt and black trousers, into a borrowed pair of
boxer shorts ("Who knows where they have been?") and jumped into the pool.
"Do you have a cigarette?" Downey is now yelling to Loree Rodkin, his manager.
"Yes, Mr Downey," she says with some amusement. "Do you want me to light it
for you?" Downey nods. "How's my house doing?" he says. "Will the pool look
like this?" Rodkin explains that Downey has just bought a Spanish-deco house
that was built for Charlie Chaplin. "Because I want it to look just like
this," Downey continues, jumping up and down in the water while dragging on
the cigarette.
Rodkin picks up the lasagna plate and walks back toward the house. There is no
point in replying; after all, Downey is only twenty-two, and when you're rich
and successful in Hollywood at twenty-two, some brattiness is expected.
Besides, there is something surprisingly endearing--something positively
Nicholsonian--about Downey's behavior. Unlike many actors, he is not brooding
or intolerably self-absorbed. Instead, he seems to be in a semiconstant state
of amusement. Downey just wants to have some fun. "Have I shown you my
imitation of fish-boy yet?" he says to Rodkin's back. "Or you can watch my
fucking milky-white, white-boy figure float around."
The bratty buoyancy, what one critic called "a kind of happy-go-lucky irony",
is what has made Downey's work so notable, even in distinctly un-notable
films. The son of the underground filmmaker Robert Downey Sr, started acting
when he was still a child. He quit school in the eleventh grade and moved to
New York City. From there, his career is like a connect-the-dots painting of
terrible projects. There was his one-year stint on Saturday Night Live in
1985-1986, which may have been the show's worst year ever. There were films
like Weird Science, The Pick-Up Artist and Less Than Zero. But through it all,
Downey's performances were memorable. "He shrubs and bubbles his way past
every obstacle. Downey is unsinkable," critic Stephen Schiff has written.
Downey's upcoming projects sounds a bit more promising. Within the next year
he will star in Rented Lips, a film directed by his father, 1969, a
coming-up-of-age story in which he stars opposite Keifer Sutherland, and True
Believer, which is being directed by Joe Ruben. Downey will have to live with
his latest mistake in career judgement, Johnny be Good, which was released to
disastrous reviews and almost complete audience lack of interest. "I'm not
sure I've been in a real good movie," says Downey, still bobbing in the pool.
"It would be nice to try that. I'd like that, you know, to be in one of those
films where at the end you go--'Yeah!'"
Wait for the tape.
I had four weeks work in Baby It's You, and I told all my friends I was now
officially a major talent and film star. And then they cut my scenes out. You
don't even see me except in one scene--you see me in the background until this
self-indulgent actress leans forward to try and get more camera time. They cut
all my scenes out and my friends to; "Hey Robert-- MAYBE it's you!" Now I
don't tell people that I'm in a film until I see it on videocassette. "Are you
doing The Pick-Up Artist?" "I'm not sure. I hope so, you know, unless they cut
around me."
Saturday Night Live 1985-1986.
They were on Anthony Michael Hall's dick to get him on the show. And so he
negotiated some ridiculous contract and then also said; "Well, Robert Downey
has to be on the show too". We were friends. And so I went on the audition. I
thought it was going to be like four people. Instead it's all of NBC in this
room. I just went in. I was wearing a T-shirt. I took my T-shirt off and trew
it on my head and started doing this character, my imitation of this guy that
I'd seen at Voila, a terrible club in the Beverly Center. Voila--I mean, I'm
really embarrassed to say that I've been there. It's like this Middle
Eastern-type club, and now it's really passé. It was even passé when I was
going there, but now it's like a memory.
Anyway, this Iranian guy was drunk and didn't know the language well, and he
was talking shit to this guy saying; "Hey man--you don't know who I am. You'll
kick my ass." I was like; "No--it's I'll kick your ass." So I went in and
started doing this Iranian for the audition and they started laughing, and
they started hiring me.
Live TV is the ultimate medium. Two hundred of your best friends in the
audience, five cameras in you face, not enough to get it together and 30
million people watching. It was like; "Hey! It's Monday! Meet the host and
come on out--we have no time." Lorne Michaels saying; "Don't make me look
bad." You know? It's really heavy. After I left, after that first season, it
got better. I don't mean by the fact that I left.
Boys will be boys.
The great thing about SNL, was being at 30 Rockefeller Center and having
Belushi and Ackroyd's old office. And me and Michael saying; "We want bunk
beds with NFL sheets. And we want them now!" And then Michael was like; "Man,
it's gonna be great, we're gonna be buddies, we're gonna do a show together,
we're gonna...." Then "I'm gonna do Out of Bounds, and he left. As for me, I
was doing Back to School and Saturday Night Live at the same time. So I would
fly back to Los Angeles for a couple of days during the week to shoot the
movie and then fly back and; "IT'S LIVE FROM NEW YORK, IT'S A TIRED YOUNG
MAN!"
What's your sign. Do you come here often?
For The Pick-Up Artist I didn't have to practice picking up girls. Jim Toback
was directing and all I had to do was watch him between takes. HE was picking
up girls. Everyone thought The Pick-Up Artist must have had heavy sex-scenes
that were cut. Molly Ringwald and I only kissed once in the movie. Well,
actually, we kissed like forty times for the one scene. That was because
Warren Beatty was helping Toback. Beatty's really knowledgeable in a lot of
areas, especially fucking. Especially kissing and making actors do something
forty times.
Molly didn't mind. We both have big lips, so it wasn't like one of us was
going to be disappointed. But I do sweat a lot. If I was her looking at
me--this guy who's sweating lika a fucking bovine reptile--I don't know if it
would be all that easy for me to get hot.
But didn't he think The Pick-Up Artist was irresponsible?
People kept asking me that question. All I wanted to do was promote The
Pick-Up Artist, and the press kept asking me about illegal and moral issues.
I'm like; "Come on, man, I just hope it does well at the box office". Of
course it's a sexually irresponsible film, but if AIDS had happened six months
later, maybe the film would have made more than six bucks.
Sex in the cinema.
I'm not an exhibitionist, really, but I have no reservations either.
Otherwise, why, in Less Than Zero, would I agree to do a scene about somebody
going down on some guy in Palm Springs for coke?
How props can help you understand your character.
In my Dad's film Rented Lips, which he directed and Martin Mull wrote, I play
a porno star named Wolf Dangler. In most of the film, I wear fish-net
underwear, and I don't give a shit. I stuffed my underwear too. Had this huge
wad of toilet paper, and I kept asking the camera guys to please just keep
panning around from the front to the side. So you could see from the front
angle it looked really big. But when you panned to the side, it looked so
obviously fake.
The first cut is the deepest.
People always ask me what it was like to grow up in my family. It's as if your
family is in the construction business. Except try and imagine it being like
an avant-garde construction business. You can't say; "My Dad's a builder,
maybe you've heard of him," because nobody's heard of him, except he's done
some weird, bizarre building somewhere. And just like construction families
probably bring their kids down to help them clean the grounds or something,
that's what it was like in my family. It just seemed like part om my day was;
"Dad isn't into the child-labor laws, but he wants to have an eight-year-old
get his neck slit by God in Greaser's Palace, so you're in the movie". I was
pissed. I wasn't into it.
What it's like to be the son of a director.
I quit school in eleventh grade. I said to my Dad; "Can I tell my counselor
that I'm quitting?" He said; "Either show up every day or quit, whatever you
want. Do something productive". I said; "Oh, thanks Dad". So I went to school,
and the theater-arts teacher said; "Are you going to be around for "Romeo and
Juliet?" And I said; "Well, I don't think so. I think I'm going to clear out
my locker right now and quit school."
So I went into my counselor's office, and she was like; "Oh Robert, if you
stay through the summer, you can make up for these 600 credits, and you can
spend your whole summer under flourescent lightning, and then, well, you might
be able to get into your last year of high school". And I said; "I think I'll
just quit instead." She's like; "Oh, we'll call your father about that." She
called my Dad, and he's like; "Sure, whatever he wants to do, as long as he
gets a job and is productive." And I said; "I told you so," and walked out of
school.
Attitude is everything.
I was a busboy in New York--there's nothing that beats serving Sting
peppermint tea--and I was auditioning for everything. But I had a bad
attitude. Like, for instance, I went to meet Robert Conrad for a TV show, and
he was like; "How do you support yourself when you're not working as an
actor?" And I said; "My spine." He didn't like that. He's like; "Good
afternoon Mr Downey." Then I said; "Well, I won't say My spine, anymore, I'll
say, I'm a busboy and I'm so earnest, and I'm really interested in doing this
fucking miniseries about your indulgent fantasies."
For the Weird Science audition, John Hughes, who was suppose to be real hip at
that moment, said; "So you want to run the scene with the guy before you do
it?" I said; "No." Went in. Read the scene. I rocked. And John Hughes is like;
"Hey--I found another one."
For The Pick-Up Artist, I went into Toback's office, and I lay down on the
floor. I was like tired or something. And I just started saying whatever I
felt like saying.
When I went to the audition for Mussolini with George C Scott, I still had
purple dye in my hair from Weird Science, and they're like; Oh, I.. I don't
think so." And I was like; "Yeah, right guys." And then I read the scene, and
they said; "Oh, great. Great. That was really great! Read the next one." I was
like, you know, "Nah, I gotta go." My vibe told me to get out of there and
make them think. So I left and they called that day--"Oh, you were so
magical."
It doesn't matter whether or not you can act. I you can go into a room and
make these sweaters want to have you around for six or eight weeks, that's
what will really get you a job.
The price of fame.
I've learned that ten 14-year old girls could definitely kill me if they got
excited enough. It's weird. You go; "God, she's got a good headlock."
The perils of the press.
They hated me in Johnny be Good. The Los Angeles Times crucified me. They said
I sounded like Pee-Wee Herman emerging from a coma. I had stopped returning my
fan mail, but now I'm gonna start again, now that Johnny be Good came out and
no one cares about me.
And what is your personal philosophy, Mr Downey?
Tofu is the root of all evil, and there's only one thing that can change a
man's mind, and that's a modified Uzi with an extra-long clip.
Does the Brat Pack really exist?
I really don't know most of the other guys. I mean, I know they're all there,
and I read about what they're doing, and they read about what I'm doing, and
when we meet each other, we say; "You're great!", "Oh, you're great too!" if
we mean it or if we don't mean it. It's about "What's your quote?" "What's
YOUR quote?"
Wouldn't it be great if instead of doing films, all these young actors were
all doing summer stock together? Like Matt Dillon stage-managing Jacques Brel?
The price of success.
Material pleasures can make you happy. Or on the other hand, they can make you
so much more depressed. Like I love my car. It's a BMW L6 635 CSI with a
racing-engine suspension. Black with white interior. But I left her for a
week, came back, and the battery's totally dead. Fifty-two grand on this
baby--with a discount--and it won't start. If I had a Huyndai, I could have
come home six months later and it would at least start. Might not have a
hand-stitched interior, but at least I could travel.
Those who can't do, teach.
I'm a real prick about acting coaches. I have nothing to learn from somebody
who's never made it as an actor himself. Then I wind up feeling bad for the
guy. Maybe he's a fucking drunk, and he's saying; "It's like this." No, it's
not like that. Or if you get into a method "Am I sensory?" "Oh, my sense
memory." It's like you're always working at this big plateau to be able to say
six words on camera and then walk to your next mark. Fuck it man.
You've gotta have faith.
I've kind of freed myself of the vices that would definitely have ruined my
career. Like, you know, drugs and arrogance and driving too fast. But I've got
a lot of blind faith in myself. That's why I say this self-indulgent phrase;
"Threre's no stopping me." Or at least that's what I say if the production
manager's getting on my case about being late. I say; "Look, man, there's no
fucking stopping me." And pretty soon the studio's going to say; "Who would
you like to be the production manager?" and I say; "Not this fucker. So you
better get off my dick."
What does it mean to be hot?
Destined to be cold.