BOOKS AND ARTS MAY 2, 2008
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Dear Hollywood
(I'm not going to cite you individually by name, but you know who you are),
I'm writing to ask you to please, please stop trying to kill
Robert Downey Jr. It's bad for cinema, bad for the box office (as this weekend
will emphatically attest), and simply not a nice thing to do.
What am I talking about? You know perfectly well, but I will
explain anyway:
Downey
has noted that his recreational drug use in the 1980s did not spiral into a
full-blown debilitating addiction until he played an addict in Less Than Zero. As the star recently told
Starpulse, “Until that movie I took my drugs after work and on the
weekends. That changed on Less Than Zero. The role was like the ghost
of Christmas Future. I became an exaggeration of the character.” Downey’s subsequent
addiction resulted in arrests, incarceration, and the near-demise of his acting
career. Nobody wants anything like that to happen again, right?
Cut to three years ago. A rehabilitated Downey was making his comeback, and you cast
him as the lead in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,
a sly
noir subversion that offered one of the best roles of his career. But you
just had to sneak in a subplot in which Downey’s
character loses a finger and spends the remainder of the film smashed on
painkillers. As he notes at one point, “Then and there I made a decision: If it
fucking killed me, I would not stop until I got, like, two more Demerol.”
Yes, I know. It’s just one movie. It’s a coincidence, all
one big misunderstanding. But how are we to explain the following?
-- The next year, you gave him a role in A Scanner
Darkly as an abuser of Substance D, a drug so addictive that “you’re
either on it, or you haven’t tried it.”
-- Then, it was the part of Paul Avery in Zodiac--a
flamboyant reporter whose career falls apart thanks to drug and alcohol abuse.
-- Following that, you made him the principal/dad in Charlie Bartlett, another alcoholic, and
this time one who waves a gun around drunkenly in one scene. (Downey also faced weapons charges in the
1990s.)
-- And now, finally, he gets to be Tony Stark in Iron Man. But what seems
at first glance to be a career pinnacle--a great
performance in a movie poised to make $2 gajillion--is just another step in
your elaborate plot to undo him. Sure, he’s just amiably boozy in this one
(though he puts down enough Scotches that one wonders if his Iron Man armor has
retractable cup holders). But, given that Stark is probably the most famous
Marvel Comics hero to face serious
alcohol abuse, it’s all too clear that within a sequel or two you intend to
have him hammered out of his mind, waving his repulsor rays around and
demanding that someone get him an Oxycodone.
Seriously, guys: Please cut it out. Downey is a terrific actor and seems to be a
nice guy. Find him a role as a yoga instructor or the owner of a health food
store. Let him play a vegan FBI agent or a Seventh Day Adventist shock jock.
Make him Captain Frickin' America.
But this has got to stop.
Sincerelyish,
Christopher Orr
Christopher Orr is a senior editor at The New Republic.
15 comments
Yes,but, its not like Downey doesn't have a say in these matters -- ultimately, he is the one who chooses the parts/jobs in which he wants to act. He could just as easily - if not easier - say, "Nope, no more wino-junkie for me."
- dcrolg
May 2, 2008 at 9:25am
Christopher, if I remember correctly, his character in "U.S. Marshalls" actually was a vegan -- and even if he was evil, he was terribly smart. And his character in "Home for the Holidays" was the younger brother to Holly Hunter that everyone should have -- even if some of us girls sulked b/c he was gay, so we wouldn't have been able to put the moves on. And there was nothing wrong with the guy in Ally McBeal (although, technically speaking, that wasn't film), was there? Let's find him some more directors willing to protect him, and give it some time.
- rrr
May 2, 2008 at 5:52pm
Wow, that was a seriously ignorant article. You are making him out to be some sort of child that cannot choose his own roles. Not to mention you are marginalizing him by implying that by playing the role of a substance abuser he will have no self control, and will fall back into real world drug use again. You are doing a great disservice to recovering addicts, and Downey by saying he not have control over his own behavior. I agree he is a great actor, but he is also an adult, and has that ability to not take these roles if he so chooses.
- Jack
May 3, 2008 at 1:49pm
You do realise he auditions for these roles...
- Heather
May 3, 2008 at 3:09pm
I thought he was just typecast in these roles because he was already known for drug, alcohol, and irony.
- itemforty
May 3, 2008 at 3:31pm
Downey deserves an Oscar for Iron Man. Absolutely perfect performance. How Good Is The Movie Iron Man?
- Mike Cane
May 3, 2008 at 7:33pm
I agree. Downey played an unsettling paranoid guy in A Scanner Darkly, where he could have benefited more as playing an soy-milk drinking, silk robe walking dude at the farmer's market in the Big Lebowski 2
- Juan
May 4, 2008 at 12:25am
Seriously Chris, I want to be able to see ONE goddam movie that doesn't center around a Seventh Day Adventist shock jock. Sure, the first four or five Seventh Day Adventist shock jock movies were pretty funny, but don't encourage Hollywood any further.
- WillPastor
May 4, 2008 at 4:06pm
It's uncanny but it is known that many actors' roles mirror their own lives. This has been documented by film studies academics. Example: Bette Davis. Is it really Hollywood's fault?
- sgache
May 4, 2008 at 9:44pm
"Wow, that was a seriously ignorant article. You are making him out to be some sort of child that cannot choose his own roles. Not to mention you are marginalizing him by implying that by playing the role of a substance abuser he will have no self control, and will fall back into real world drug use again. You are doing a great disservice to recovering addicts, and Downey by saying he not have control over his own behavior. I agree he is a great actor, but he is also an adult, and has that ability to not take these roles if he so chooses." Wow. C'mon down from that horse, I've got a phrase I'd like to teach you. It's called "tongue-in-cheek". Clearly (as evidenced by his use of "Sincerely-ish" at the end, this is a joke. Do you seriously believe Mr. Orr would write an article addressed to "Hollywood" and be serious about it?
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May 7, 2008 at 11:15am
Aw, Chris--I respect your concern but ex-addicts often like to play addicts. It's a form of therapy. And better than boring us all with tales of their new sobriety. Downey was awfully good, though, in that weird movie about the teen psychiatric med-pusher, watching a younger guy in the Robert Downey, Jr. role. Thanks for mentioning Kiss Kiss--wonderful performance, underrated film.
- David Edelstein
May 7, 2008 at 12:18pm
Boy, some folks are in need of a sense of humor transplant. Downey, great actor, even when he was hammered. Glad he's gotten sane enough to work (since insurance premiums were pricing him out of the market). Looking forward to seeimg more of whatever he does.
- huston3
May 7, 2008 at 3:11pm
Guys, anybody saw "Wonder Boys"? Downey is there, acting as a co-actor, a kind of last but not least. Michael Douglas is junk, he just crinks a lot...
- Bianca
May 7, 2008 at 5:37pm
For everyone getting hotheaded over this piece - its not an entirely serious article. Orr is mischievously playing around with a pattern he's noticed across a few films just pretending its part of Hollywood's design that it be so. It's a parlour game with a little irony added. Of course there are contrary examples. Of course Downey Jr makes his own choices. It's a bit of funning around, people. Hence the sign-off of "Sincerelyish". Geeze. Its not meant to be taklen so seriously.
- Gabba
May 8, 2008 at 12:10am
Yeah I just watched Less than zero. I'm about ready to go on a coke binge and dance to bad 80's music and totally hack up the rest of poor Bret Easton Ellis' books with shitty movies.
- duh
May 29, 2008 at 2:15am