Robert Downey Jr. is riding high. A natural high these days – he’s been clean for more than a decade, he’s happily married to his rock, Susan Downey, and he just won his first Oscar, for Oppenheimer. He’s also crazy-rich from the years he was Iron-Man – he had one of the most infamous backend deals in Hollywood history, and he’s also open to coming back to Marvel if they ever want him. All of which means that RDJ can do whatever he wants, and apparently what he wants is to chat with Esquire and remind people that he’s still friends with Mel Gibson. I mean, I get it to some degree – RDJ was at rock bottom several times and Mel was one of the few power players to really stand up for him. RDJ has done the same for Mel. You can read the full Esquire piece here. Some highlights:
On how acting in The Sympathizer is different from Oppenheimer: “I knew that playing Strauss, in Oppenheimer, was going to be like picking fly sh*t out of pepper—that it was going to be extremely exacting, that it was going to be . . . not confining, but liberating by its varied implicit limitations of what my usual toolbox is. So I had a feeling that, like a coiled spring, Sympathizer would be my unwind.”
On whether he would return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe: “Happily. It’s too integral a part of my DNA. That role chose me. And look, I always say, Never, ever bet against Kevin Feige. It is a losing bet. He’s the house. He will always win.”
Susan Downey on how she “saved” Downey: “Everybody loves the simple narrative of somehow I came in and turned his life around and blah, blah, blah. But I can tell you that I would never be who I am without him in my life. His trajectory is just the easier one to chart because he’s had to live his ups and downs in public. When we met, we were fortunate that he was in a place where he was open to do things differently than he had historically. But you know what? So was I.”
On the “walking couples therapy” he and his wife Susan started doing during the pandemic: “Trying to figure out where we’re at, what’s pissing us off, what are we afraid of, what do we want, what will bring us closer together, how do we measure ourselves against relationships that we define as exemplary and not be repeaters or over-emulate? How do we want to shape our life?”
Mel Gibson on his reaction when Downey asked Hollywood to forgive Gibson for his drunken comments disparaging Jews: “A couple of years into that he invited me to some kind of award he was getting—we always had this kind of seesaw thing, where if he was on the wagon, I was falling off, and if I was on the wagon, he was falling off. So I was pretty much nonexistent in Hollywood at the time, and he stood up and spoke for me. It was a bold and generous and kind gesture. I loved him for that.”
On the death of his father: “I think when he left this earth, his soul was light as a feather. What better thing? It was a classy as f*ck exit, I’ll tell you that much. I don’t know your experience or anyone else’s, but I think there’s a fear for any son that his father will die like a coward.”
On Jimmy Kimmel’s opening-monologue joke about him at the Oscars: “I don’t care. I love Jimmy Kimmel. I think he’s a national treasure.”
On accepting his Academy Award, onstage in front of the world: “I was just trying to hold my mud.”
The Esquire piece is really long and RDJ is in full performance mode for the interviewer. Mel is quoted extensively – they’ve known each other for over three decades and, honestly, you can tell how much Mel adores him. The way these kinds of magazine profiles work is that the celebrity (or rather, their publicist) submits names of people to contact for filler quotes. Meaning, if RDJ didn’t want Mel Gibson to be quoted extensively as a friend/ally, he wouldn’t have been. Interestingly, Jodie Foster is also quoted extensively – I would assume they’re still very close too, and Jodie is another one who has known him for decades.
What else? I wondered if RDJ was pissed about Kimmel’s joke at the Oscars, and I wondered if RDJ’s vibe was just sort of “off” that whole night for another reason. But this Esquire piece sort of makes it clear that he was extremely nervous and just trying to keep his sh-t together during the whole awards season, basically.
Cover & photos courtesy of Norman Jean Roy for Esquire.