Robert Downey Jr.: Playboy Interview

When Robert Downey Jr. discusses his well-publicized reputation as a heroin and coke addict, he often talks about how, despite the media circus swirling around him, he processed thoughts through what he calls a lizard brain—a mind that compartmentalized his life into 45-minute increments. Each increment followed the same pattern: Race out of the house, get drugs, get high and be back in the house within 45 minutes.

It's hard to keep a straight face when Downey explains this because he actually has a lizard perched atop his head. It's a bearded dragon, a reptile belonging to his four-year-old son, Indio. The lizard cost $80, not including the veterinary fees incurred when it went into seizures earlier in the day. The lizard was meant to keep Indio busy while dad shot a co-starring role in U.S. Marshals, the spin-off of The Fugitive.

Indio couldn't care less that his father is being interviewed. Though his father has been called the best young actor in this country by director Robert Altman and others, Indio wants nothing more of his father than playtime. It obviously gnaws at Downey to have to put off his son, and so the compromise is that while Downey answers questions about an illustrious career that almost came undone by his addiction to hard drugs, he does it as Indio places the lizard on top of his head.

The son of Robert Downey, the underground filmmaker who directed Putney Swope, Robert Downey Jr. entered the movie business when he was not much older than Indio. He was born on April 4, 1965 in New York City and made his screen debut at the age of five as a puppy in his father's film Pound. He did another turn, with his actress mom, Elsie, in the Downey-directed Greaser's Palace.

It's no surprise that, as a student at Santa Monica High School, he quit school and headed to New York to become an actor. While waiting for his big break, Downey Jr. sold shoes and bused tables, even served as living art at the downtown club Area.

In 1982 he entered a happy, successful phase that included dating aspiring actress Sarah Jessica Parker. He also got jobs playing punks in movies such as America, Firstborn and Baby It's You, and he starred in the 1985 telepic Mussolini: The Untold Story, as the dictator's son, Bruno. But it was a supporting role in Weird Science that gave him his big break. He became buddies with fellow cast member Anthony Michael Hall, the geek in the John Hughes teen-angst film Sixteen Candles. When Hall joined the cast of Saturday Night Live in 1985, Downey went with him. Spotted on SNL by director James Toback, Downey got his first starring role, the title character in The Pick-Up Artist. Then came Less Than Zero, from the Bret Easton Ellis novel, with Downey's portrayal of the spiraling downfall of nice guy-drug addict Julian Wells. It put him into the top echelon of young actors, and Downey took full advantage, making several movies each year, including Chances Are, True Believer, Air America, Only You, Soapdish and Short Cuts.

Downey beat out such highly bankable competitors as Robin Williams and Billy Crystal to star in Chaplin, the biopic directed by Richard Attenborough for which Downey received an Oscar nomination.

Meanwhile, Downey's penchant for partying was becoming problematic. Growing up in a bohemian family, Downey had smoked pot with his dad by his early teens and had also used cocaine. When he starred in Less Than Zero, his castmates feared there wasn't much difference between the performance and the performer.

While Downey's acting seemed effortless, even inspired, in such films as Heart and Souls, Natural Born Killers, Home for the Holidays, Restoration and Richard III, his drug problems worsened. His self-destructive behavior had earlier taken a toll on his relationship with Parker. Subsequently he met and married singer Deborah Falconer, and they had Indio. But on June 23, 1996, Downey was pulled over for speeding and was found to be carrying cocaine, heroin and an unloaded .357 Magnum in the cab of his truck. By that time Falconer had moved out with Indio and less than a month later, in what became known as the Goldilocks incident, Downey surprised a Malibu family on July 16 by passing out in their child's bed. He had to be revived and was sent by Malibu municipal court judge Lawrence Mira to the Exodus Recovery Center in Marina del Rey, the same facility Kurt Cobain visited before committing suicide.

Downey escaped from the facility for four hours on July 20, then found himself handcuffed before the same judge, who made it clear that the party was ending. Mira jailed Downey for ten days in a 24-hour lockdown facility and gave him three years' probation, with the threat of jail again if he slipped up—even once.

It was the remedy Downey needed. So far he has remained sober, and he has his family back. Strong performances in the Toback-directed Two Girls and a Guy, the Mike Figgis-directed One Night Stand and the Altman-directed The Gingerbread Man have helped restore Downey's reputation in Hollywood.

To see how Downey is rebuilding his life, Playboy sent Michael Fleming, a columnist for Daily Variety, to speak with him in Chicago, where he was filming U.S. Marshals. Fleming reports:

We had agreed to meet on what was supposed to be his day off. It had rained the previous day, forcing a change in the shooting schedule. So when we met that evening, Downey had not only worked a full day in an unair-conditioned airplane hangar in 100-degree heat, he had also absorbed a punch in the ribs from Wesley Snipes, the film's villain, that was serious enough to require X rays. Despite this, Downey could not have been more gracious. In three interview sessions over the next 24 hours, he was as engaging and charming as he appears onscreen. He didn't duck a single question, and this was by far the most candid, in-depth interview he has given about those dark days.

Downey now spends his days with two constant companions. There's Joe Bilella, a producer of Richie Rich and Downey's partner in a production company called Herd of Turtles. The other is Earl Hightower, a court-appointed drug counselor who helps Downey stay straight. Both were there at the three-floor house Downey rented during the Chicago shoot, along with his son and Downey's mother, who came for a visit while Downey's wife, Deborah, stayed in Los Angeles to work on her music career.

Downey is not particularly ashamed of or apologetic about the events that transpired last year. Indeed, he cringes more at the memory of a bad film. He covered the most difficult subjects without a hint of bitterness, defensiveness or denial; in fact, he often seemed so eager to tell his story that he would interrupt or change subjects in midthought. He says he's rediscovered the things that are important in his life—his son, his wife, his directing aspirations and his own plans for a music career.