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Speaker 1: It always is. My ringer has been off since two

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Speaker 1: thousand eleven. Yeah, why would you have your ringer on? Ever?

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Speaker 1: I mean, if I'm waiting for an emergency. But are

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Speaker 1: you like not going to look at your phone sometime

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Speaker 1: in the next minutes. Some people do not look at

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Speaker 1: their phone every moment of every day. No, yeah, good

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Speaker 1: for them, that's great. I would love to look at

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Speaker 1: my phone less. But I also like, if I was

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Speaker 1: really trying, if I was really like, no, I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: put my phone down all day and I'm just gonna

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Speaker 1: have a day away from the phone. I'm gonna put

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Speaker 1: my ringer on. But I would also hate that because

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Speaker 1: I'd get like nineteen spam calls and who calls anyone?

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Speaker 1: You know, that's true. I will I don't mind a

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Speaker 1: phone call like like a lot of people do. But anyway,

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Speaker 1: fresh fresh phone discourse, I will say I was very

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Speaker 1: excited to get our first email. Oh my god, our

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Speaker 1: very first listener email you guys to romance at I

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Speaker 1: heart media dot com. So exciting, so exciting. You know

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Speaker 1: what that means. It's time a mail call. Awesome. Do

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Speaker 1: you remember being a kid and like you've got mail?

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Speaker 1: Mail used to be really exciting. And now I have

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Speaker 1: seven eighty thousand unread messages in my inbox. I throw

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Speaker 1: away everything that comes into our actual mailbox, but this

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Speaker 1: email felt like old times. Yes, it was awesome. We

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Speaker 1: were I was so excited to get an email. I

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Speaker 1: was like, hey, why you and he had to run

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Speaker 1: in from the other room and it's cool. This one

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Speaker 1: is in reference to our episode about aijah Ritta Berlin

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Speaker 1: or Mauer in the Berlin Wall, and it's from a

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Speaker 1: listener named Arvid Gomez. Thank you, Rvid, We're so excited

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Speaker 1: to hear from you. He says, I'm from the closest

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Speaker 1: city to Leiden since Baul, where aijah Ritta lived. When

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Speaker 1: I listened to that episode, I got a flashback to

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Speaker 1: a friend of mine mentioning that his parents knew someone

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Speaker 1: with a guillotine in their bedroom. Several dots got can

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Speaker 1: did in my mind, and that anecdote suddenly started to

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Speaker 1: make a lot of sense. Yes, that's so cool that

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Speaker 1: somebody knew aijah Rita and we reached them. That's so

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Speaker 1: amazing to me. So thank you Arvid for reaching out.

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Speaker 1: We're super excited to get that and let us know

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Speaker 1: if you do email us at romance at I Heart

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Speaker 1: media dot com if you are cool with us reading

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Speaker 1: your email on the air and mentioning you by name,

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Speaker 1: because we'd love to do that to make you guys

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Speaker 1: seem real. Um, we're not just sending each other emails

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Speaker 1: like you were great today, Diana. I thought you were

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Speaker 1: very funny. Thank you, Mr Smith. You know what else

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Speaker 1: is exciting? What else is exciting the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

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Speaker 1: I think it's funny. Right after we had an episode

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Speaker 1: with our backdoor pilot about us talking about the m

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Speaker 1: c U, we decided to do the Downies. Look, Robert

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Speaker 1: Downey Jr. And Susan Downey are a lot more than

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Speaker 1: the m c And yes, that's gonna come up. But no,

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Speaker 1: this is not an episode about Iron Man. It's just

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Speaker 1: an episode about you know, Iron Man, the man inside

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Speaker 1: the Iron right, the man behind the ironside the Iron Man. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the Man and the Iron Man. So we are here

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Speaker 1: to talk about the Downies today. That's not a surprise

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Speaker 1: if you read the title of the episode spoiler alert. Hey, look,

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Speaker 1: I love Robert Downey Jr. And I am learning to

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Speaker 1: love Susan Downey too. I didn't know much about her.

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Speaker 1: Before this, I knew a little bit that she was

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Speaker 1: a producer and that she helped revitalize his career. She

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Speaker 1: is known in Hollywood circles as the woman who saved

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Speaker 1: Robert Downy Jr. Because he was having a rough go

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Speaker 1: of it. And anyway, yeah, I'm a big fan of his.

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Speaker 1: I have been since probably his you know, early comeback,

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Speaker 1: kiss Kiss Bang Bang. That was one of the first.

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Speaker 1: Oh Scanner Darkly. Uh oh, yeah, he's great and Scanner Darkly.

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Speaker 1: Actually he's really fucking good and Scanner Darkly. Um, it's

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Speaker 1: not perfect, but the cast is great. I mean, you've

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Speaker 1: got Keanu and Winona and Robert Downey Jr. Pretty much

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Speaker 1: headed up. We gotta watch it. Robert Downy Jr. Is excellent,

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Speaker 1: and since then, I just think he's a really cool guy.

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Speaker 1: I don't agree with everything he says, but you know,

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Speaker 1: we shouldn't worship anyone, right, agree right, Yeah, take people

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Speaker 1: for what they are. Anyway, we're gonna talk about Robert

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Speaker 1: Downy Jr. We're gonna talk about Susan Downey. Uh, We're

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Speaker 1: gonna talk about Robert Downy Jr's other relationships and uh,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna learn some cool stuff. What do you say,

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Speaker 1: I say, let's do it. Hey, their friends come listen. Well,

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Speaker 1: Elia and Diana got some stories to tell. There's no

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Speaker 1: match making, a romantic tips. It's just about ridiculous relationships,

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Speaker 1: a love. It might be any type of person at all,

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Speaker 1: and abstract cons an't a concrete wall. But if there's

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Speaker 1: a story where the second clans ridiculous role dans a

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Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio Robert Downey the Second Junior,

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Speaker 1: as is the more traditional Robert Downey the Second Junior,

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Speaker 1: would be pretty funny. He was born on April four, five.

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Speaker 1: Shout out to all the I don't know actually Laura

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Speaker 1: Krueger's birthday, Laura Krueger. Laura Kruger is one of my

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Speaker 1: favorite people in the world. Laura, you share birthday with

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Speaker 1: Robert Downey Jr. I believe it's an aries the ram

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Speaker 1: Let's call it an area astrology. While it was nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixty five and he was born in the small town

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Speaker 1: of New York City, that's also International Pillow Fight Day. Sorry.

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Speaker 1: Robert Downey Jr. Was born on International Pillow Fight Day

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Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty five in New York City. His father

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Speaker 1: is Robert Downey obviously Robert Downy seniors, I might say

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Speaker 1: he was a director and an actor is a director.

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Speaker 1: I mean, well he is still alive. He was a director,

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Speaker 1: and this guy made movies in the seventies New York

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Speaker 1: City at the shoestring budget surdi ist movies. He and

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Speaker 1: his wife, Elsie Anne were super into the New York

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Speaker 1: City counterculture absurdist movement of the sixties and seventies. Yeah right,

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Speaker 1: I mean like part of that, Like that must have

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Speaker 1: been so awesome. I would totally do. Although the more

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Speaker 1: you learn about the counterculture scene of the sixties, it

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Speaker 1: sort of gets a little grungey, like real fast and

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Speaker 1: kind of real fucked up, So you're like, well, maybe

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Speaker 1: it's better as as a tourist destination than as a

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Speaker 1: real lifestyle, which actually brings us to kind of what

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Speaker 1: happened because his parents were both drug users, and you know,

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Speaker 1: there's a lot of drinking going on in that world too,

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Speaker 1: and his mother sadly fell deep into drug addiction and

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Speaker 1: alcoholism and that actually disrupted their marriage and they separated

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Speaker 1: in nine when Robert Downey Jr. Was ten, And you know,

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Speaker 1: he mostly stayed with his dad. From what I could

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Speaker 1: tell this definitely, Like was the culture he was in.

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Speaker 1: I mean, his dad was shooting movies in their living room,

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Speaker 1: and I'm sure there was a ton of artists types

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Speaker 1: coming by and hanging out, probably having a great time.

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Speaker 1: Probably not a great environment for a kid. Robert says

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Speaker 1: that his father let him try smoking weed when he

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Speaker 1: was six years old. Dad, he later said, he deeply

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Speaker 1: regrets that. He later figured out I shouldn't have given

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Speaker 1: my six year old marijuana. Great, it's good realization to

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Speaker 1: come to, right. He was like, I was reading so

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Speaker 1: much WILLIAMS Burrows the time, I wasn't thinking. My good

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Speaker 1: buddy Samuel Beckett thought it was a good idea. But

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Speaker 1: his dad moved out to l A and Junior followed

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Speaker 1: him out there. He went to Santa Monica High School,

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Speaker 1: So yeah, he was hanging out in the hallways, I

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Speaker 1: guess with Sean Penn, Rob Low and Amelio Estevez. What

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Speaker 1: a cool bunch of dudes. Wow, all the floppy hair

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Speaker 1: of that era happening once. I was sort of an

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Speaker 1: honorary member of the brat pack. But of course that

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Speaker 1: just meant more drugs and alcohol, just more access to

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Speaker 1: all the worst things. Different high school experience than I had.

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Speaker 1: Robert Downey Jr. Had a different high school experience than

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Speaker 1: I had in at least one way. Yeah, well, unlike you,

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Speaker 1: he dropped out in to pursue acting full time. You

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Speaker 1: weren't even born then. He was in a movie called Firstborn,

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Speaker 1: and that's where he met Sarah Jessica Parker and the

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Speaker 1: two of them started dating, and his father once said

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Speaker 1: an interview, thank god for Sarah Jessica Parker. Without her,

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Speaker 1: Robert would go a hundred miles an hour into a

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Speaker 1: brick wall. That's I feel like that puts a lot

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Speaker 1: of pressure on Sarah Jessica Parker. I was just about

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Speaker 1: to say, this is a lot to put on a

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Speaker 1: girlfriend now, Like without you, he would definitely drive himself

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Speaker 1: into a wall out of recklessness or whatever and be like, oh, okay,

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Speaker 1: well I was just thinking of leaving, but I guess

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Speaker 1: I will. But you know, he's he was workin. I mean,

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Speaker 1: he was functioning, he was keeping it together. He got

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Speaker 1: weird science in. It wasn't even his first movie, but

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Speaker 1: it was definitely his first, I think one of his

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Speaker 1: first big movies. Yeah, and in seven he landed a

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Speaker 1: movie called Les than zero based on a Brett Easton

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Speaker 1: Ellis novel, So probably a lot of murder and rape

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Speaker 1: in it. I don't know. Yeah, that's the American psycho guy, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he loves that ship. I've read many of his novels

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Speaker 1: and they're always got on that in there. And this

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Speaker 1: part really changed his life in two ways. For one,

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Speaker 1: The New York Times reviewed the film and said his

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Speaker 1: performance was quote desperately moving, and so this was really

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Speaker 1: big push. It helped him get bigger roles in bigger

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Speaker 1: films with bigger stars. Um In subsequent years, he would

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Speaker 1: join casts like Air America, which had Mel Gibson and

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Speaker 1: Soap Dish with Sally Field and Kevin Klein and Whoopi Goldberg.

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Speaker 1: So he's like working with the names of the day.

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Speaker 1: This is the late eighties, right, so you can't do

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Speaker 1: better than Kevin n Whoop gol Work, Sally Field and

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Speaker 1: Mel Kimson. Ke Kevin Klein is one of the greatest

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Speaker 1: actors of all time. Kevin Klein has just need to

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Speaker 1: throw that out there every time his name comes up,

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Speaker 1: and it'll come up again, I guarantee it. So all

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Speaker 1: this good stuff is happening career wise. It seems, but

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Speaker 1: Robert Downey Jr. Gave an interview in two thousand three

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Speaker 1: where he kind of said this was sort of the

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Speaker 1: beginning of his troubles. He said, until that movie, I

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Speaker 1: took my drugs after work and on the weekends, maybe

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Speaker 1: I'd turn up hungover on set, but no more so

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Speaker 1: than the stunt man. I mean, it's Hollywood, baby, It's Hollywood.

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Speaker 1: But he said this particular role was like the Ghost

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Speaker 1: of Christmas Future, and the character that he was playing

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Speaker 1: with an exaggerated version of himself. And then he said,

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Speaker 1: things change, and in some ways I became an exaggeration

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Speaker 1: of the character. So the snowball effect of I'm putting

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Speaker 1: myself into the character and then then then I'm becoming it,

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Speaker 1: and then I'm surpassing it. A Sebastian stand watch self

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Speaker 1: with this, Tommy Lee. Yeah, I mean it's not an

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Speaker 1: uncommon story. I've you know, you dive into a role

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Speaker 1: and it can it definitely can't affect you. I mean

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Speaker 1: I could say that as an actor. I I think

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Speaker 1: that it's taken to some ridiculous extremes, you know, in

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Speaker 1: the Laquin Phoenix Daniel day Lewis kind of world. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: when you you embody a person for months and it

200
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Speaker 1: can definitely affect you. I think it's most common with

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Speaker 1: like on screen romances or whatever when they carry it out,

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Speaker 1: you know what I mean, and then it doesn't last

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Speaker 1: because it's like you're conflating the character's feelings and you

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Speaker 1: usually have some chemistry for it to work. But I

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Speaker 1: think that gets conflated very easily, and it's one of

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Speaker 1: the easiest ways to lose your kind of be like

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Speaker 1: blur that line. Especially, yeah, I mean, especially imagine if

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Speaker 1: you're someone who's looking for that thing, Like if you're

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Speaker 1: single and you're and you can never meet anybody because

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Speaker 1: you're an actor and you work fourteen hour days for

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Speaker 1: months at a time, and then it gets put right

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Speaker 1: in front of you. We'll translate that over to someone

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Speaker 1: who's already a drug addict, who's already an alcoholic, and

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Speaker 1: now they're playing this part where this guy is just

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Speaker 1: like constantly drugs and alcohol and really extreme person that's

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Speaker 1: just putting it right in front of you, and uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, and now he's thinking about drugs and alcohol

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Speaker 1: all day like it's his job, because it is his job.

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Speaker 1: That's a good point trigger after trigger. Oh my god. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it's getting into the nineties now. This is when

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Speaker 1: Robert Downey's mother actually went to go finally seek help

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Speaker 1: for her addictions, and she would end up being sober

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Speaker 1: for the rest of her life after this. But despite

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Speaker 1: his mother's progress, Robert Downey Jr. Is in a bad spot,

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Speaker 1: and in ninety one, s JP broke up with him goodbye.

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Speaker 1: She cited his addictions. It's too much to handle, and

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Speaker 1: just like we talked about, she said, she really had

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Speaker 1: to summon the courage to leave him. Yeah, she said.

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Speaker 1: The biggest hardest choices about those kinds of relationships are

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Speaker 1: feeling brave enough to leave even if you think they're

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Speaker 1: going to die. You're afraid they're going to die if

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Speaker 1: you aren't there to shore up their base every single

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Speaker 1: solitary day. I'm sure this isn't like they've I'm sure

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Speaker 1: they've had conversations throughout the seven years they were together,

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Speaker 1: her being like, listen, you've kind of are like really

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Speaker 1: doing too much right now, and I need you to

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Speaker 1: do something about about this. So I doubt very much

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Speaker 1: that it was a surprise. She she got pushed to

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Speaker 1: her limit. Yeah, later on, I mean he said he

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Speaker 1: couldn't even blame her. He said, I was so selfish.

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Speaker 1: I had a drug problem. And that's the furthest thing

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Speaker 1: from what she is. She provided me with a home

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Speaker 1: and understanding. She tried to help me. I was in love,

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Speaker 1: but love clearly was not enough. Love cannot overcome all

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Speaker 1: the worst behavior that you have available to you. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, you can love someone with all of your heart,

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Speaker 1: and if you're still really difficult to be around and

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Speaker 1: putting your own life in danger and other people's that

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Speaker 1: I could love you back just as much. But it's

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Speaker 1: still that's not enough to build a life with someone. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because you're not a partner, you know what I mean,

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Speaker 1: I can't rely on you more often than not. I'm

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Speaker 1: just taking care of you. And some people don't want

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Speaker 1: to dedicate their lives to taking care of someone else.

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Speaker 1: They wanted to be taken care of as well. They

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Speaker 1: want to have it back and forth. Right, But that

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Speaker 1: but like she said, you don't want to just ditch someone, right,

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Speaker 1: But you know how much can you give? Yeah? Right?

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Speaker 1: I mean, especially we have sympathy for an addiction, right, Like,

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Speaker 1: I know that this has got kind of some claws

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Speaker 1: in you it's not like you're this heinous piece of shit.

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Speaker 1: But I think at some point you do have to

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Speaker 1: decide I'm not going to also be grabbed by this

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Speaker 1: thing that's got you. Sometimes that's the best for them.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes that doesn't matter. You just need to do what's

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Speaker 1: right for you, need to protect yourself. I mean, we could,

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Speaker 1: on one hand, we could say, well, maybe Robert Downey Jr.

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Speaker 1: Wouldn't be here today if she didn't stay with him

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Speaker 1: for those seven years. We can't know. It still doesn't

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Speaker 1: make it her responsibility, and it's not something you ever

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Speaker 1: want to put on someone because, like you said, I mean,

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Speaker 1: she clearly lived a chunk of her life unhappy because

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Speaker 1: she felt like she needed to because people were saying

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Speaker 1: things like his dad weren't for you, he'd be a

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Speaker 1: dead And she's like, how does that make her feel? Okay, great,

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Speaker 1: that's not a that's not a proud thing, right, you know,

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Speaker 1: I can't wait for the wedding. Yeah, right, that's a

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Speaker 1: that's almost a threat, I'll tell you right now. I

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Speaker 1: don't know a lot about her, but that's the sorriest

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Speaker 1: I've ever felt for Sarah Jessica Parker Well. I I commender.

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Speaker 1: She she gave seven years, she tried, Yeah she did,

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Speaker 1: and she did Okay. She turned out she's doing okay.

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Speaker 1: So they break up. Robert Downey Jr. Carries on, it's

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Speaker 1: nineteen ninety two. We're rocking, we're rolling, we're grunge in Calabungah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we're teen fears, Yes we are. So. Robert Downey Jr.

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Speaker 1: Meets this model actress singer named Deborah Falconer, and they

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Speaker 1: dated for forty two days, six weeks, and then got married.

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Speaker 1: I don't get it getting married that quickly. I just don't.

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Speaker 1: I don't know. He was living life in the fast lane.

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Speaker 1: I guess she was too. Yeah, I mean, you know,

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Speaker 1: it's a model actress singer in the early nineties hanging

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Speaker 1: out with Robert Downey Jr. I doubt she was sober,

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Speaker 1: but man, talk about functioning. This guy was still doing

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Speaker 1: all right. And he gets cast in Richard Attenborough's Chaplin

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Speaker 1: as the titular role of Charlie Chaplin. He really dug

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Speaker 1: in deep for this part down his twenty seven at

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Speaker 1: this point, and it's the first time he says he

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Speaker 1: ever really prepared for a role, like really went deep

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Speaker 1: down it. But Yeah. He studied Chaplain's films for years.

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Speaker 1: He read old reviews and historical texts about him. He

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Speaker 1: learned Chaplain's British accent, which was kind of like a

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Speaker 1: London cockney like cy. It's pretty hard to do accurately,

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Speaker 1: to be honest, it's very easy to funk up. He

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Speaker 1: learned how to play the violin and how to play

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Speaker 1: tennis left handed, and in an l A Times interview,

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Speaker 1: he said, I know that Charlie had a hand in this,

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Speaker 1: that somehow he and I are connected. You don't do

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Speaker 1: something like this where his spirit doesn't check in. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we watched it last night. Actually, yeah, we're reading about

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Speaker 1: this just because we've it's been on our list for

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Speaker 1: a while. We always wanted to see it, and uh,

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Speaker 1: it's okay. Yeah he is the highlights. Yes, he's very good. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you can tell even a lot of work in and

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Speaker 1: Kevin Klein's in it. Kevin Klein alert, Kevin Klein. Clackson call,

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Speaker 1: Kevin Klein Clackson call. What's a Clackson call. It's like

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Speaker 1: a big siren. Anyway, on we go about Chaplain Publin

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Speaker 1: fine watch it for his performance performance and he got

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Speaker 1: an Oscar nomination for it nine Academy Awards. He lost

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Speaker 1: to al Pacino for Scent of a Woman. Hua, you

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Speaker 1: never saw a Cent of a Woman. So now it's

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Speaker 1: nineteen three. Thanks are going great. They got Oscar nomination

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Speaker 1: on his back. He's got a movie coming up with

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Speaker 1: Maurissatomai called Only You. He's got a son, he endeavor

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Speaker 1: have a son named Indio Indio falcon Er Downey Indio

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Speaker 1: Falcon Falconer, by the way, is such a dopey please.

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Speaker 1: We were back and forth a lot about if we

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Speaker 1: were both gonna be Banks or if Diana was going

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Speaker 1: to keep Brown. Honestly, we both should have just changed

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Speaker 1: it to something cool like Falcon Earner dope. Then comes

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Speaker 1: Natural Born Killers, that was a big movie, and then

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Speaker 1: he gets put in this Richard the Third movie. But

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Speaker 1: he's riding high in I mean Robert Downey Jr. And

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Speaker 1: he's literally being described at this point as the greatest

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Speaker 1: actor of his generation. They're they're talking up Robert Downey Jr.

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Speaker 1: Is the guy. Now they do know that he is

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Speaker 1: also the guy on drugs, but that was kind of again,

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Speaker 1: It's like, who cares, he's making good movies. We like him.

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Speaker 1: You know, yeah, he wasn't getting arrested at that point,

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Speaker 1: well until six when the bottom fell out. A Guardian

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Speaker 1: interview from two thousand three says that even by movie

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Speaker 1: industry standards, his appetite for illegal substances was a mammoth, unquenchable,

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Speaker 1: riotously insatiable. That's saying something between eighty seven's less than

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Speaker 1: zero and Robert Downey Jr. Had been in rehab three

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Speaker 1: times to try kind of half heartedly to clean up.

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Speaker 1: But in ninety six he got stopped for speeding and

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Speaker 1: he was infamously arrested for having cocaine, heroin and a

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Speaker 1: three fifty seven magnum unloaded in the car with him.

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Speaker 1: So so he got arrested. But anyway, so he's out

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Speaker 1: on bond. He's waiting for his court date, which is

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Speaker 1: only a few weeks later. But on the day his

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Speaker 1: charges are filed, the police get a call from a

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Speaker 1: Malibu family several blocks away from Downey's home saying, somebody

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Speaker 1: broke into our house and they got an intruder in here.

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Speaker 1: And when the police got there, they find Robert Downey Jr.

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Speaker 1: Passed out in a kid's bedroom. The kids not there,

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Speaker 1: by the way, but definitely immediately was like, oh what,

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Speaker 1: but no, he just room. Yeah, he just walked into

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Speaker 1: a bedroom and passed out. Yeah, it's like a goal

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Speaker 1: elocks three bear situation. So there's last straw for Deborah,

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Speaker 1: who separated from him at this point, again citing his addictions,

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Speaker 1: and they get into a legal battle over custody of

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Speaker 1: Indio and then we've got pretty much five years of that,

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Speaker 1: just one after another, extint of arrests, bad headlines, just chaos,

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Speaker 1: and in nine in December, he was sent directly to

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Speaker 1: jail from trial for six months l a county jail

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Speaker 1: for violating the conditions of his parole. He'd failed to

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Speaker 1: show up for a drug test in September during a

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Speaker 1: bench Which is the worst thing you can do, right,

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's not the worst thing you can do,

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Speaker 1: but it's a dumb thing. It's a bad thing, and

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Speaker 1: it's pretty much bad news. The judge said, I'm going

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Speaker 1: to incors rate you in a way that's very unpleasant

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Speaker 1: for you. I don't care who you are. What I

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Speaker 1: care about is that there's a life to be saved

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Speaker 1: from drugs. These are dare days for sure, Yeah, very

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Speaker 1: dare days. Yes, this is your light. This is your

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Speaker 1: brain on drugs. To his credit, Downey pretty much supplicated.

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Speaker 1: I mean, he said, I have no excuses. I don't

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Speaker 1: know why. The severity and the fear of you, of death,

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Speaker 1: of not being able to live a life free of

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Speaker 1: drugs has not been enough to make me not continually relapse. Again,

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Speaker 1: I really do need this, even if I don't want to,

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Speaker 1: I need to. And he gave his supporters a smile

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Speaker 1: and they took him away in handcuffs. Six months in

385
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Speaker 1: jail and l A County jail is not a Kush spot. No,

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Speaker 1: this was not like the movie star jailed that you

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Speaker 1: might think. This is Los Angeles County jail, not even prison. Yeah. Again,

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Speaker 1: he missed a drug test and was arrested. Again. He's

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Speaker 1: not making great decisions. And he begged to be spared

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Speaker 1: prison time in favor of completing this drug treatment program

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Speaker 1: that he was attending. While he was in custody for

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Speaker 1: a month. He said he had recently summoned what he

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Speaker 1: felt was the true resolve to stay sober, and he

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Speaker 1: said the threats of imprisonment did nothing to quell his

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Speaker 1: drug addiction. He says the warnings, no matter how severe,

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Speaker 1: we're just interrupting my business, which I mean, that's an

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Speaker 1: indictment of itself, like of the system right to be like, look,

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Speaker 1: I know me, and all you're doing is getting in

399
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Speaker 1: me his way of doing the drugs that me is

400
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Speaker 1: gonna do. Right, It's just you're just kicking the can

401
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Speaker 1: down the road. I mean, I think that's what we've

402
00:22:20,800 --> 00:22:23,200
Speaker 1: been learning, right with addiction, is that it doesn't quite

403
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Speaker 1: work to put people in jail for it. It's just

404
00:22:25,440 --> 00:22:28,359
Speaker 1: not doing the job. I think that's the truth about

405
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Speaker 1: a lot of things. A lot of the conversations are

406
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Speaker 1: about the roots of a problem. You can't just treat

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Speaker 1: bad behavior or punish bad behavior. You have to find

408
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Speaker 1: out what the source of that behavior is and fix

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Speaker 1: that problem. Yeah, his his lawyer even brought that up,

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Speaker 1: Robert Shapiro, he said, just what you're talking about. He said,

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Speaker 1: his addiction is a result of his upbringing. Look at

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Speaker 1: his life and his parents and where he came from.

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Speaker 1: Of course he's on drugs. And then he said, imprisonment

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Speaker 1: isn't going to solve anything. He said, drugs are as

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Speaker 1: readily available inside the jail as they are outside the jail,

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Speaker 1: so that that's problem number one right there is you're

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Speaker 1: not separating him from the problem. You're, in fact, you're

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Speaker 1: locking him in with it to a large degree. So

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Speaker 1: Robert Shapiro had put together a crack team of lawyers,

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Speaker 1: in fact, the same team of lawyers that had gotten O. J.

421
00:23:15,040 --> 00:23:19,720
Speaker 1: Simpson acquitted of the murder he did. But it wasn't enough.

422
00:23:19,800 --> 00:23:23,240
Speaker 1: The judge had enough. Downey says in an interview on

423
00:23:23,520 --> 00:23:28,719
Speaker 1: our friend Jason Seawan and Will's podcast SmartLess that the judge,

424
00:23:28,880 --> 00:23:31,119
Speaker 1: through the book, the gavel, his wig and the bench

425
00:23:31,160 --> 00:23:34,200
Speaker 1: at me and Judge Meira, Yeah, just said he was

426
00:23:34,240 --> 00:23:35,840
Speaker 1: too much of a danger to himself and others. He

427
00:23:35,840 --> 00:23:38,920
Speaker 1: was like, I can't keep giving you rehab because we've

428
00:23:38,960 --> 00:23:42,400
Speaker 1: been trying that. He says, is there any question that

429
00:23:42,480 --> 00:23:45,879
Speaker 1: if this defendant continues to use drugs, we're going to

430
00:23:45,920 --> 00:23:49,840
Speaker 1: be reading his name in an obituary. We tried rehab

431
00:23:50,119 --> 00:23:53,280
Speaker 1: and it's simply hasn't worked. I mean, if you ask

432
00:23:53,440 --> 00:23:56,400
Speaker 1: Robert Downey Jr. And Today, and you know he's talked

433
00:23:56,400 --> 00:23:59,720
Speaker 1: about this, he's he basically says, great, good. I'm glad

434
00:23:59,720 --> 00:24:02,919
Speaker 1: they did that. I needed that. I think that he

435
00:24:03,080 --> 00:24:06,919
Speaker 1: needed to be taken away from his success probably and

436
00:24:07,040 --> 00:24:10,160
Speaker 1: from his enablers. There's a quote from a movie producer,

437
00:24:10,200 --> 00:24:14,159
Speaker 1: Michael Mailer back then who says, oh, well, even if

438
00:24:14,160 --> 00:24:16,560
Speaker 1: he was doing drugs again, it wouldn't determine from hiring him.

439
00:24:16,760 --> 00:24:19,200
Speaker 1: And I think that's the kind of system that makes

440
00:24:19,240 --> 00:24:21,359
Speaker 1: it bad, Like you're not doing him any favors by

441
00:24:21,359 --> 00:24:23,359
Speaker 1: saying that. I think I think that's a good time

442
00:24:23,720 --> 00:24:26,760
Speaker 1: to step away for a minute, take a little break. Yeah, yeah,

443
00:24:27,240 --> 00:24:31,120
Speaker 1: one of those good idea. Welcome back to the show everyone,

444
00:24:31,320 --> 00:24:34,000
Speaker 1: And right now Robert Downey Jr. Is going to jail,

445
00:24:34,160 --> 00:24:37,240
Speaker 1: straight to prison. Do not pass go, do not collect

446
00:24:37,320 --> 00:24:40,639
Speaker 1: two in l A. I think it's two hundre million, right,

447
00:24:41,400 --> 00:24:44,639
Speaker 1: The taxes are crazy. But yeah, he definitely. I think

448
00:24:44,880 --> 00:24:47,600
Speaker 1: we did note you know, throughout this story that he's

449
00:24:47,640 --> 00:24:50,720
Speaker 1: gone several times to rehab, showing he didn't really want

450
00:24:50,760 --> 00:24:53,600
Speaker 1: to be a drug addict. Like you said, this was dairtimes,

451
00:24:53,760 --> 00:24:57,840
Speaker 1: drug resistance education. Just say no and if and if

452
00:24:57,880 --> 00:25:00,800
Speaker 1: you're doing drugs, you're a bad guy. Do you remember that,

453
00:25:00,920 --> 00:25:05,679
Speaker 1: Oh my god, the flashback moment. Do you remember the

454
00:25:05,680 --> 00:25:09,280
Speaker 1: movie you probably it was called All Stars to the Rescue.

455
00:25:10,200 --> 00:25:13,199
Speaker 1: Oh man, this was always playing Okay. In in my

456
00:25:13,320 --> 00:25:16,560
Speaker 1: hometown of Dansville, there was a laundromatte video store and

457
00:25:16,600 --> 00:25:18,399
Speaker 1: there was a little area for kids to sit in.

458
00:25:18,560 --> 00:25:21,240
Speaker 1: They would frequently play this movie All Stars to the Rescue,

459
00:25:21,280 --> 00:25:24,320
Speaker 1: and it was a cartoon about this kid, uh, you know,

460
00:25:24,400 --> 00:25:27,480
Speaker 1: like middle school kid who was getting introduced to drugs

461
00:25:28,160 --> 00:25:31,720
Speaker 1: and all of his toys, which were like the Ninja Turtles,

462
00:25:32,160 --> 00:25:36,199
Speaker 1: some Muppet babies, fucking probably some g I Joe's, I

463
00:25:36,200 --> 00:25:39,359
Speaker 1: don't know, just all these hot cartoons on these Saturday

464
00:25:39,400 --> 00:25:42,720
Speaker 1: morning cartoons of the day all come to life and

465
00:25:42,800 --> 00:25:46,320
Speaker 1: work together to try and get this kid off drugs. Right,

466
00:25:46,520 --> 00:25:49,080
Speaker 1: And of course all the people who already were on

467
00:25:49,160 --> 00:25:51,879
Speaker 1: drugs were the bad kids, right, People who were already

468
00:25:51,880 --> 00:25:57,520
Speaker 1: on drugs were watching this video going, my toys can

469
00:25:57,600 --> 00:26:03,040
Speaker 1: talk bro so true. This is probably the like every

470
00:26:03,200 --> 00:26:07,200
Speaker 1: drug user's favorite movie. Actually now I want to get

471
00:26:07,240 --> 00:26:12,200
Speaker 1: high and want to do let's do it that Friday night.

472
00:26:13,560 --> 00:26:15,439
Speaker 1: But the characters in the movie, like the kids that

473
00:26:15,480 --> 00:26:17,440
Speaker 1: were on drugs giving him drug and stuff, they were

474
00:26:17,480 --> 00:26:20,800
Speaker 1: just evil beyond redemption. These are the bad kids. And

475
00:26:20,880 --> 00:26:22,680
Speaker 1: but they were like, we gotta we gotta save him

476
00:26:22,680 --> 00:26:25,439
Speaker 1: before it's too late. You know, if he spokes that joint,

477
00:26:25,880 --> 00:26:28,960
Speaker 1: it'll be too late to the Kermits, like, we'll have

478
00:26:29,000 --> 00:26:33,440
Speaker 1: to kill him. Whoa Kerman. That's still like we can't

479
00:26:33,440 --> 00:26:39,000
Speaker 1: save him. Oh, Kermy, I'll do it. He has a

480
00:26:39,040 --> 00:26:48,120
Speaker 1: good karate chap. Oh. So anyway, that was flashback, So yeah,

481
00:26:48,200 --> 00:26:50,679
Speaker 1: dare Era. So I guess it was kind of novel

482
00:26:50,720 --> 00:26:52,960
Speaker 1: to be saying, like, hey, it's not the person who's

483
00:26:53,000 --> 00:26:55,080
Speaker 1: using drugs, it's the drugs, it's the culture, it's the

484
00:26:55,119 --> 00:26:57,680
Speaker 1: system they're in. Blah blah blah blah blah. Most people

485
00:26:57,720 --> 00:26:59,640
Speaker 1: at the time, they just saw him as a rich,

486
00:26:59,680 --> 00:27:02,960
Speaker 1: spoil old, over indulgent man who refused to get himself

487
00:27:03,040 --> 00:27:07,080
Speaker 1: under control and his life together. The Washington Post wrote,

488
00:27:07,520 --> 00:27:13,320
Speaker 1: Even by the standards of the overindulged, over exposed celebrity community,

489
00:27:13,920 --> 00:27:18,520
Speaker 1: Dony's self destructive spiral has been notable, and its resistance

490
00:27:18,600 --> 00:27:24,919
Speaker 1: to rescue or punishment, so his buddies, like Sean Penn, said,

491
00:27:25,560 --> 00:27:30,680
Speaker 1: his particular case concerns me a great Oh my god,

492
00:27:31,000 --> 00:27:34,600
Speaker 1: what happened to Sean Penn is that my daughter be

493
00:27:34,600 --> 00:27:37,000
Speaker 1: in there. I just keep thinking a mystic river, mystic

494
00:27:37,119 --> 00:27:44,320
Speaker 1: river area, Sean Penn says, hang on, so Sean Penn says,

495
00:27:44,359 --> 00:27:48,200
Speaker 1: I mean, here's my best Sean Penn, his particular case

496
00:27:48,320 --> 00:27:53,560
Speaker 1: consents me, consoigns me a great deal, consoigns me. It's

497
00:27:53,600 --> 00:27:57,000
Speaker 1: he's somebody I know poisonally and care about. I think

498
00:27:57,000 --> 00:27:59,560
Speaker 1: he's a post the boy for the fact that prison

499
00:27:59,600 --> 00:28:02,399
Speaker 1: doesn't your addiction. I think Sean Penn is one of

500
00:28:02,440 --> 00:28:06,960
Speaker 1: the weasels from the frame un I'm agreeing with Sean

501
00:28:07,000 --> 00:28:08,640
Speaker 1: Penn here, I just don't have a way to voice

502
00:28:08,720 --> 00:28:13,359
Speaker 1: him that's not pure mockery. So he garnered a lot

503
00:28:13,359 --> 00:28:16,480
Speaker 1: of sympathy from people that knew him. Hollywood kept hiring him.

504
00:28:16,520 --> 00:28:19,919
Speaker 1: He never had a lack of supporters. So a year

505
00:28:20,000 --> 00:28:23,480
Speaker 1: into his three year sentence, he gets released on a

506
00:28:23,800 --> 00:28:26,439
Speaker 1: five thousand dollar bond. It turned out there was a

507
00:28:26,440 --> 00:28:29,320
Speaker 1: big legal technicality in his sentencing and there was a

508
00:28:29,320 --> 00:28:31,960
Speaker 1: three judge panel that appealed the case, and they looked

509
00:28:32,000 --> 00:28:35,040
Speaker 1: down at Robert Downey Jr. And they said, you keep

510
00:28:35,160 --> 00:28:39,520
Speaker 1: up the good work. Robert Downey Jr. He wouldn't. Definitely not.

511
00:28:39,720 --> 00:28:44,000
Speaker 1: In two thousand, Downey got his big comeback role on

512
00:28:44,320 --> 00:28:50,600
Speaker 1: Ali mcbeale dancing Baby Yeah, Lawyer, Sitcom Right, wouldn't it.

513
00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:53,680
Speaker 1: I had some like I don't know, weird fantasy all

514
00:28:53,960 --> 00:28:56,040
Speaker 1: look all you need to know about atat mcbeil is

515
00:28:56,080 --> 00:28:59,320
Speaker 1: there was a dancing baby. Okay, that's all. Well, that's it.

516
00:28:59,320 --> 00:29:02,280
Speaker 1: It was a come both for for Robert Downey Jr.

517
00:29:02,320 --> 00:29:05,720
Speaker 1: And for Ali McBeal. The show. He got stellar reviews,

518
00:29:05,960 --> 00:29:09,240
Speaker 1: viewership jumped eleven percent um. But he did spend more

519
00:29:09,280 --> 00:29:12,600
Speaker 1: time with his son Indio, and he was helping sponsor

520
00:29:12,720 --> 00:29:15,600
Speaker 1: other addicts in you know, I guess the n A

521
00:29:15,760 --> 00:29:19,440
Speaker 1: or or A A program or both um. He and

522
00:29:19,480 --> 00:29:23,200
Speaker 1: Ally mcbell herself Calista Flockhart had a public fling for

523
00:29:23,240 --> 00:29:26,600
Speaker 1: a little while, even though at the time he's still

524
00:29:26,640 --> 00:29:29,720
Speaker 1: in divorce proceedings with Deborah, so it took him a

525
00:29:29,760 --> 00:29:31,240
Speaker 1: lot longer to get divorce than it took him to

526
00:29:31,280 --> 00:29:36,240
Speaker 1: get married. Uh. He got nominated for an Emmy, He

527
00:29:36,320 --> 00:29:40,120
Speaker 1: won a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor, and there

528
00:29:40,200 --> 00:29:43,240
Speaker 1: was Oscar Buzz for his turn and Wonder Boys and

529
00:29:43,240 --> 00:29:46,640
Speaker 1: then Mel Gibson Customers to play Hamlet in a live

530
00:29:46,760 --> 00:29:50,640
Speaker 1: stage production that Mel was going to be directing, and

531
00:29:50,760 --> 00:29:53,920
Speaker 1: he was also going to star in America's Sweethearts with

532
00:29:54,000 --> 00:29:59,520
Speaker 1: Julie Roberts and Billy Crystal and also Katherine's Aida Jones Um.

533
00:30:00,160 --> 00:30:03,520
Speaker 1: Things seemed to really be turning around for him, and

534
00:30:03,560 --> 00:30:09,520
Speaker 1: in public he really seemed to have it together. But unfortunately, Yeah,

535
00:30:09,560 --> 00:30:13,000
Speaker 1: around Thanksgiving of the year two thousand. That same year,

536
00:30:13,240 --> 00:30:17,600
Speaker 1: he was hanging out in Palm Springs with his posse

537
00:30:17,920 --> 00:30:22,680
Speaker 1: bunch of friends and someone, an anonymous caller called the

538
00:30:22,720 --> 00:30:27,080
Speaker 1: police and said, Hey, there's a room in this resort

539
00:30:27,400 --> 00:30:29,920
Speaker 1: where you're going to find a bunch of cocaine. So

540
00:30:30,400 --> 00:30:33,000
Speaker 1: the cops come in. They searched the room. Before the

541
00:30:33,040 --> 00:30:36,440
Speaker 1: cops get their allegedly a woman ran from the room.

542
00:30:37,040 --> 00:30:39,360
Speaker 1: We don't know who she was, but they got in there.

543
00:30:39,400 --> 00:30:42,720
Speaker 1: They found valiant pills. They found four grams of cocaine

544
00:30:42,840 --> 00:30:48,520
Speaker 1: and a sexy wonder Woman costume. A sexy wonder Woman

545
00:30:48,640 --> 00:30:52,280
Speaker 1: costume in iron Man's room. This is like the original crossover.

546
00:30:52,320 --> 00:30:57,280
Speaker 1: I guess a crossover we are all looking for. It

547
00:30:57,320 --> 00:31:01,160
Speaker 1: didn't go well. He was arrested again, and later on,

548
00:31:01,320 --> 00:31:03,400
Speaker 1: I mean, we talked about this ally Mabel time as

549
00:31:03,440 --> 00:31:05,560
Speaker 1: being sort of his big comeback, but later on he

550
00:31:05,640 --> 00:31:08,000
Speaker 1: said that was actually the worst point of his life

551
00:31:08,040 --> 00:31:10,240
Speaker 1: in terms of addiction. He was written off of Ally

552
00:31:10,280 --> 00:31:13,800
Speaker 1: mcbel the play Hamlet was canceled. His part was recast

553
00:31:13,960 --> 00:31:17,960
Speaker 1: with John qu Sack in America's Sweethearts, and it was

554
00:31:17,960 --> 00:31:21,200
Speaker 1: the final straw for Deborah Deborah Falconer, who they were

555
00:31:21,240 --> 00:31:23,760
Speaker 1: still I guess, still going through a whole bunch of

556
00:31:23,920 --> 00:31:27,080
Speaker 1: divorce proceedings, but they had finally settled on a on

557
00:31:27,120 --> 00:31:31,240
Speaker 1: a custody like a joint custody arrangement. But she said, never,

558
00:31:31,360 --> 00:31:34,600
Speaker 1: never mind, forget all that. Um, you're not allowed to

559
00:31:34,600 --> 00:31:37,120
Speaker 1: see Indio until you've been cleaned for a while. I'm

560
00:31:37,120 --> 00:31:40,360
Speaker 1: not gonna let to see him while you're fucked up. Um.

561
00:31:40,440 --> 00:31:43,200
Speaker 1: He pleaded no contest to the charges and managed to

562
00:31:43,240 --> 00:31:47,080
Speaker 1: avoid jail time because of that. Roblow said, give us

563
00:31:47,080 --> 00:31:52,120
Speaker 1: your blow was just parks and roblo. That's everyone's robo

564
00:31:52,240 --> 00:31:55,680
Speaker 1: come on. Literally. The status part of this is what

565
00:31:55,760 --> 00:31:58,200
Speaker 1: it will do The relationship between Robert and his son

566
00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:02,240
Speaker 1: kids really resilient, and there's a lot of years to

567
00:32:02,280 --> 00:32:06,880
Speaker 1: figure out the relationship. But this certainly can't help. And

568
00:32:06,920 --> 00:32:11,360
Speaker 1: that's the real tragedy of it all. Okay, I'm gonna

569
00:32:11,400 --> 00:32:14,080
Speaker 1: take a run. I'm going to take a fourteen mile

570
00:32:14,160 --> 00:32:16,920
Speaker 1: bike ride see you later. I feel like he's here.

571
00:32:17,200 --> 00:32:20,640
Speaker 1: So for whatever reason, this time it really seemed to work.

572
00:32:20,800 --> 00:32:23,120
Speaker 1: He doesn't go to jail, but he goes into this

573
00:32:23,440 --> 00:32:26,800
Speaker 1: rehab program court ordered and kind of disappears for the

574
00:32:26,840 --> 00:32:31,640
Speaker 1: better part of two thousand and then his his old

575
00:32:31,680 --> 00:32:38,680
Speaker 1: friend Mel Gibson, America's sweetheart Mel Gibson, gave him his

576
00:32:38,720 --> 00:32:42,240
Speaker 1: first job back on screen in this movie, The Singing Detective,

577
00:32:42,320 --> 00:32:45,400
Speaker 1: but mel Gibson had to personally underwrite Robert Downey Jr's

578
00:32:45,440 --> 00:32:49,840
Speaker 1: insurance policy because the insurance company wouldn't do it. Yeah.

579
00:32:50,400 --> 00:32:53,320
Speaker 1: I mean who who out there at this point was saying, oh, yeah, no,

580
00:32:53,520 --> 00:32:57,560
Speaker 1: this time he probably means it, you know, and he was. Yeah,

581
00:32:57,560 --> 00:33:01,640
Speaker 1: that's he was considered a dangerous higher really and probably

582
00:33:01,720 --> 00:33:03,959
Speaker 1: unbankable because he was also I mean, what was he

583
00:33:04,000 --> 00:33:05,720
Speaker 1: known for at this point? Yeah, he got nominated for

584
00:33:05,760 --> 00:33:09,480
Speaker 1: an Oscar ten years earlier, but a bunch of trouble then. Yeah,

585
00:33:09,720 --> 00:33:13,400
Speaker 1: he's known for He's famously an addict. He's famously of

586
00:33:13,720 --> 00:33:17,800
Speaker 1: a rich crackhead who's always getting arrested. That's what people

587
00:33:17,880 --> 00:33:19,680
Speaker 1: knew him for us. So, no, he wasn't a box

588
00:33:19,680 --> 00:33:26,040
Speaker 1: office bankable star. There are the Oscar winners. Yeah, Hollywood Baby.

589
00:33:28,160 --> 00:33:31,760
Speaker 1: So he had to take on the work himself and

590
00:33:32,120 --> 00:33:34,520
Speaker 1: Joel Silver, who's a producer. And if you don't know

591
00:33:34,720 --> 00:33:39,560
Speaker 1: Joel Silver, you do because Joel Silver produced die Hard

592
00:33:39,760 --> 00:33:42,360
Speaker 1: and The Matrix and like just a ship ton of

593
00:33:42,520 --> 00:33:45,960
Speaker 1: awesome action movies in the nineties and two thousand's. And

594
00:33:46,120 --> 00:33:50,760
Speaker 1: he was making this new movie with halle Berry called Gothica,

595
00:33:51,440 --> 00:33:54,840
Speaker 1: and Robert Downey wanted in. So he goes knocking on

596
00:33:54,880 --> 00:33:57,520
Speaker 1: the door and Joel Silver is like, no, you're you're

597
00:33:57,520 --> 00:33:59,880
Speaker 1: too risky. I don't want to have to reshoot scene

598
00:34:00,160 --> 00:34:02,880
Speaker 1: after I fire you or you get arrested or whatever.

599
00:34:03,000 --> 00:34:04,840
Speaker 1: But he pushed and pushed and pushed, and he was like,

600
00:34:04,880 --> 00:34:06,719
Speaker 1: I really want this part. It's gonna be good for me.

601
00:34:06,800 --> 00:34:08,919
Speaker 1: I'm really sober. This is good. I've got it together now,

602
00:34:08,960 --> 00:34:11,560
Speaker 1: I'm okay, I'm safe to hire. Joel Silver says, all right,

603
00:34:11,840 --> 00:34:13,800
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what you're gonna do. You're gonna come

604
00:34:14,239 --> 00:34:16,799
Speaker 1: to Canada with me. We're gonna sit down, we're gonna

605
00:34:16,840 --> 00:34:19,799
Speaker 1: have lunch with halle Berry. It was starring in the

606
00:34:19,800 --> 00:34:25,440
Speaker 1: movie and my assistant producer, Susan Levin Susan Levin. Susan

607
00:34:25,680 --> 00:34:28,920
Speaker 1: says in a Harper's Bazaar interview, I honestly didn't know

608
00:34:29,080 --> 00:34:33,800
Speaker 1: anyone who had drug problems. She is polar opposite of

609
00:34:33,920 --> 00:34:37,600
Speaker 1: Robert Downey Jr. In every way pretty much, from upbringing

610
00:34:37,680 --> 00:34:41,160
Speaker 1: to everything at all of every decision. Yeah, she was

611
00:34:41,200 --> 00:34:46,200
Speaker 1: a cheerful, marathon running valedictorian from the Chicago suburbs. She

612
00:34:46,320 --> 00:34:50,200
Speaker 1: described herself as very structured, with firm boundaries. She knew

613
00:34:50,239 --> 00:34:52,040
Speaker 1: from a young age she wanted to work in the

614
00:34:52,040 --> 00:34:54,440
Speaker 1: film industry, so she went to the University of Southern

615
00:34:54,480 --> 00:34:58,520
Speaker 1: California to study filmmaking. She'd never so much just smoked

616
00:34:58,560 --> 00:35:01,720
Speaker 1: a cigarette, she says, a red wine now and then.

617
00:35:02,200 --> 00:35:06,080
Speaker 1: But she was never one for parties and without I mean,

618
00:35:06,400 --> 00:35:10,040
Speaker 1: you know, without all these headlines of being arrested and

619
00:35:10,120 --> 00:35:13,640
Speaker 1: having strange women in her hotel room and ship. Susan's

620
00:35:13,640 --> 00:35:16,640
Speaker 1: backstory is pretty short. There's a there's not a lot

621
00:35:16,680 --> 00:35:19,919
Speaker 1: to say to catch us up to now it's Susan. Yeah.

622
00:35:19,960 --> 00:35:22,960
Speaker 1: She did work for Threshold Entertainment. She produced the original

623
00:35:23,000 --> 00:35:28,759
Speaker 1: Mortal Kombat movies, which is great and awful respectively. I

624
00:35:28,840 --> 00:35:34,520
Speaker 1: love Mortal Kombat and then Mortal Kombat Annihilation is one

625
00:35:34,560 --> 00:35:38,960
Speaker 1: of the single worst movies ever made. Sorry, Susan Levin,

626
00:35:39,040 --> 00:35:42,080
Speaker 1: sorry about it. I'm not even sorry I worked on

627
00:35:42,120 --> 00:35:44,440
Speaker 1: that movie. I wouldn't tell people. I bet people who

628
00:35:44,480 --> 00:35:47,720
Speaker 1: worked on that movie don't tell people. I don't Susan

629
00:35:47,800 --> 00:35:52,719
Speaker 1: Levins like I thought. I took that off. Um. She

630
00:35:52,800 --> 00:35:57,360
Speaker 1: joined Silver Pictures Joel Silver obviously, and oversaw the development

631
00:35:57,480 --> 00:36:01,720
Speaker 1: for Thirteen Ghosts and sword Fish, as well as Cradle

632
00:36:01,800 --> 00:36:05,320
Speaker 1: to Grave and ghost Ship. Susan busted her fucking ass

633
00:36:05,360 --> 00:36:07,560
Speaker 1: to be a film producer, and now she is a

634
00:36:07,600 --> 00:36:11,160
Speaker 1: film producer. Go Susan, she did the damn thing. Yes,

635
00:36:11,360 --> 00:36:13,960
Speaker 1: she didn't get to take the Robert Downey Junior route

636
00:36:13,960 --> 00:36:17,279
Speaker 1: of fucking snort your way through prison until you're a star.

637
00:36:18,840 --> 00:36:22,200
Speaker 1: But one day Joel Silver says, Hey, Susan, why don't

638
00:36:22,239 --> 00:36:24,600
Speaker 1: you come help me produce this movie Gothica. So she

639
00:36:24,680 --> 00:36:28,160
Speaker 1: goes to lunch with Joel halle Berry and Robert Downey Jr.

640
00:36:28,880 --> 00:36:32,440
Speaker 1: And she knows about Robert Downy j I mean, everybody does.

641
00:36:32,840 --> 00:36:35,040
Speaker 1: It's national story. You could not know you did live

642
00:36:35,040 --> 00:36:37,160
Speaker 1: in this country and not know about Robert Downy Jr.

643
00:36:37,280 --> 00:36:41,520
Speaker 1: You know about Robert downy um, and they're all very

644
00:36:41,560 --> 00:36:44,759
Speaker 1: nervous about hiring him. And she said at the time

645
00:36:44,840 --> 00:36:47,160
Speaker 1: also she had zero interest in him. She was not

646
00:36:47,239 --> 00:36:49,799
Speaker 1: interested in a bad boy. She had no inclination to

647
00:36:49,840 --> 00:36:52,640
Speaker 1: save his tortured soul or any ship like that. She's

648
00:36:52,840 --> 00:36:56,000
Speaker 1: got no time for all that kind of mess. In fact,

649
00:36:56,120 --> 00:36:57,960
Speaker 1: she says she's never one of those girls who thought

650
00:36:57,960 --> 00:37:01,080
Speaker 1: a lot about getting married. Relationship were not a priority

651
00:37:01,120 --> 00:37:04,120
Speaker 1: for her. She was professionally driven and she found happiness

652
00:37:04,160 --> 00:37:07,560
Speaker 1: in her career, which I can totally see. She seems

653
00:37:07,719 --> 00:37:12,040
Speaker 1: very type, a very goal oriented. Ran a marathon. Why

654
00:37:12,040 --> 00:37:13,680
Speaker 1: would you do that if you didn't want to achieve

655
00:37:13,719 --> 00:37:17,640
Speaker 1: a goal? But she said he was weird in a

656
00:37:17,719 --> 00:37:20,360
Speaker 1: type of way where you just couldn't ignore him. You

657
00:37:20,400 --> 00:37:23,080
Speaker 1: could not overlook him even if you wanted to. They're

658
00:37:23,080 --> 00:37:26,719
Speaker 1: sitting down at lunch at this Japanese restaurant in Montreal

659
00:37:27,239 --> 00:37:29,279
Speaker 1: to talk about this movie and whether they're going to

660
00:37:29,360 --> 00:37:32,160
Speaker 1: hire him, and everybody else orders Japanese food like you

661
00:37:32,200 --> 00:37:35,799
Speaker 1: would at a Japanese restaurant, and Robert tells them, oh,

662
00:37:36,040 --> 00:37:38,920
Speaker 1: oatmeal is the super food, and he pulls out packets

663
00:37:39,000 --> 00:37:41,480
Speaker 1: of oatmeal that he brought with him to have for

664
00:37:41,600 --> 00:37:44,000
Speaker 1: lunch and just makes his own oatmeal at the table.

665
00:37:44,520 --> 00:37:46,960
Speaker 1: And she said, he's got this peopleso, this box of

666
00:37:47,000 --> 00:37:50,120
Speaker 1: all these various like herbs and spices and things. And

667
00:37:50,160 --> 00:37:53,400
Speaker 1: then throughout lunch he was doing yoga moves at the table.

668
00:37:53,480 --> 00:37:56,960
Speaker 1: I mean, real weird actor ship you know, no yoga

669
00:37:57,000 --> 00:38:02,040
Speaker 1: at the table, Robert, Okay, that is after dinner activity,

670
00:38:02,360 --> 00:38:06,160
Speaker 1: she says, yeah. I mean he was interesting but weird.

671
00:38:06,440 --> 00:38:10,120
Speaker 1: And there was still a lot of apprehension about hiring

672
00:38:10,200 --> 00:38:13,120
Speaker 1: him obviously. I mean again, what if he relapsed halfway

673
00:38:13,120 --> 00:38:14,960
Speaker 1: through the production? What if they had scenes shot and

674
00:38:14,960 --> 00:38:16,520
Speaker 1: they had to go back and redo the whole thing.

675
00:38:16,800 --> 00:38:19,600
Speaker 1: What worse yet, what if he died. I mean, that's

676
00:38:19,760 --> 00:38:23,880
Speaker 1: an insurance liability, that's a production liability. That's also just

677
00:38:24,040 --> 00:38:27,680
Speaker 1: bad news, bad press, bad in general. Also, you don't

678
00:38:27,680 --> 00:38:30,600
Speaker 1: want a guy dying on your on your time. But

679
00:38:30,760 --> 00:38:33,960
Speaker 1: he really felt himself right now, he was really feeling

680
00:38:34,120 --> 00:38:36,440
Speaker 1: like he was ready for a real comeback, and he

681
00:38:36,520 --> 00:38:40,920
Speaker 1: told them, tell you what withhold of my salary for

682
00:38:40,920 --> 00:38:43,879
Speaker 1: this movie. Hold that until we're done shooting, and then

683
00:38:44,000 --> 00:38:45,880
Speaker 1: you pay me the rest if I get to the end,

684
00:38:45,920 --> 00:38:48,200
Speaker 1: and I will, I'm sure, it was more negotiative than that,

685
00:38:48,280 --> 00:38:50,719
Speaker 1: but that was basically his personal gamble. He said, I'll

686
00:38:50,719 --> 00:38:52,319
Speaker 1: make it. I'll make it to the end. I will

687
00:38:52,360 --> 00:38:53,960
Speaker 1: do this movie. You'll be proud of me. It's going

688
00:38:54,040 --> 00:38:56,360
Speaker 1: to be great. He really wanted this, and Joel Silver

689
00:38:56,760 --> 00:38:59,480
Speaker 1: Susan say say yeah, all right, all right, let's do it.

690
00:38:59,480 --> 00:39:01,160
Speaker 1: We're not gonna had a better deal than that. So

691
00:39:01,200 --> 00:39:05,120
Speaker 1: they started filming and there's no initial sparks, at least

692
00:39:05,120 --> 00:39:07,640
Speaker 1: for Susan. She says, I thought he was brilliant, but

693
00:39:07,719 --> 00:39:09,960
Speaker 1: it didn't go beyond that. I saw him like a

694
00:39:10,000 --> 00:39:14,000
Speaker 1: professor or someone's older brother. She is nine years younger

695
00:39:14,000 --> 00:39:16,680
Speaker 1: than him. Not a sexy thing to say, by the way,

696
00:39:18,000 --> 00:39:21,960
Speaker 1: but Robert Danny Jr. Kept finding reasons to be near her,

697
00:39:22,160 --> 00:39:24,800
Speaker 1: and they would work out together after the shoot most days.

698
00:39:25,560 --> 00:39:27,759
Speaker 1: And after a few weeks of this, while they're on

699
00:39:27,800 --> 00:39:31,160
Speaker 1: the treadmill, one day, he turns to her and said, Levin,

700
00:39:31,239 --> 00:39:33,920
Speaker 1: you want to go to dinner? And she said I

701
00:39:33,960 --> 00:39:37,480
Speaker 1: could eat, So they agreed to meet in the lobby

702
00:39:37,520 --> 00:39:40,040
Speaker 1: for dinner. And she says, as he's walking down the

703
00:39:40,080 --> 00:39:42,520
Speaker 1: stairs towards me, I remember looking up at him and

704
00:39:42,560 --> 00:39:48,040
Speaker 1: suddenly thinking, Oh, he's really cute. Their romance bloomed quickly.

705
00:39:48,520 --> 00:39:52,400
Speaker 1: Um Downey is pretty vague about his exact sobriety timeline,

706
00:39:52,480 --> 00:39:55,560
Speaker 1: but he did tell the Hollywood Reporter reporter that his

707
00:39:55,680 --> 00:39:58,480
Speaker 1: exit strategy was in the works at the time. He

708
00:39:58,520 --> 00:40:01,799
Speaker 1: asked her out and Susan's as her complete ignorance of

709
00:40:01,800 --> 00:40:04,560
Speaker 1: what drug addiction was like was part of what allowed

710
00:40:04,600 --> 00:40:08,160
Speaker 1: her to feel comfortable dating him. She did not understand

711
00:40:08,160 --> 00:40:11,400
Speaker 1: the hold it had on people, right, and Robert Downey Jr.

712
00:40:11,400 --> 00:40:13,319
Speaker 1: Was like, thank God for that. If she knew the

713
00:40:13,360 --> 00:40:16,080
Speaker 1: depths of my depravity, we would not be sitting here.

714
00:40:16,800 --> 00:40:18,960
Speaker 1: She didn't know what she was getting into, and if

715
00:40:19,000 --> 00:40:22,520
Speaker 1: she had, she would have got into it. Yeah, he

716
00:40:22,600 --> 00:40:25,680
Speaker 1: was still in divorce proceedings, still with Deborah Falconer at

717
00:40:25,680 --> 00:40:28,319
Speaker 1: this point. I couldn't find It's kind of unclear what

718
00:40:28,360 --> 00:40:30,680
Speaker 1: their relationship was like at the time, but he was

719
00:40:30,719 --> 00:40:33,960
Speaker 1: spending more time with his son Indio. Within three months

720
00:40:33,960 --> 00:40:37,520
Speaker 1: of dating, Robert proposed to Susan and she said at

721
00:40:37,560 --> 00:40:39,640
Speaker 1: that point she knew, yes, this is what I wanted.

722
00:40:39,680 --> 00:40:42,960
Speaker 1: They both wanted this, that it was a very serendipitous,

723
00:40:43,120 --> 00:40:46,160
Speaker 1: magical thing. From the way they describe it that they

724
00:40:46,239 --> 00:40:50,120
Speaker 1: just came together and immediately felt like, whoa, this is

725
00:40:50,280 --> 00:40:53,760
Speaker 1: very right for both of us. She said, on a condition, though,

726
00:40:54,120 --> 00:40:57,960
Speaker 1: I'll marry you, but not for two years. We're going

727
00:40:58,000 --> 00:41:00,560
Speaker 1: to be engaged for two years. And he needed to

728
00:41:00,600 --> 00:41:04,200
Speaker 1: stay sober that entire time. And she said, like we

729
00:41:04,280 --> 00:41:06,960
Speaker 1: mentioned that, she didn't know a lot about addiction, and

730
00:41:07,000 --> 00:41:09,160
Speaker 1: there's a lot of things in that two years that

731
00:41:09,280 --> 00:41:11,719
Speaker 1: she became educated on, but she just wanted to make

732
00:41:11,760 --> 00:41:14,080
Speaker 1: sure that he was staying the person that she knew

733
00:41:14,320 --> 00:41:16,800
Speaker 1: that he was building to sobriety, that he was clean,

734
00:41:16,920 --> 00:41:18,960
Speaker 1: he was professional, but you know it was still a

735
00:41:18,960 --> 00:41:20,879
Speaker 1: fun guy in the off hours. That's what she loved

736
00:41:20,880 --> 00:41:23,719
Speaker 1: about him, and he he was still working on it right.

737
00:41:24,120 --> 00:41:27,759
Speaker 1: Susan said that after Gothica wrapped, she saw this dark

738
00:41:27,800 --> 00:41:31,120
Speaker 1: side of him, his Darth Vaders, he referred to it,

739
00:41:31,600 --> 00:41:34,719
Speaker 1: and she told him right then and there, Nope, this

740
00:41:34,760 --> 00:41:37,319
Speaker 1: isn't gonna work. She made it very clear, I'm not

741
00:41:37,360 --> 00:41:39,560
Speaker 1: doing that. I'm not doing this thing. I like that

742
00:41:39,600 --> 00:41:43,160
Speaker 1: about Susan, she seems to be very like, listen, I'll

743
00:41:43,440 --> 00:41:46,080
Speaker 1: I'm not going to do that. Like I feel like

744
00:41:46,120 --> 00:41:48,640
Speaker 1: I a certain kinship with Susan, because I'd be like,

745
00:41:48,719 --> 00:41:51,240
Speaker 1: even if I really loved someone, I would rather suffer

746
00:41:51,320 --> 00:41:53,360
Speaker 1: without them than to deal with that. I think it

747
00:41:53,360 --> 00:41:55,840
Speaker 1: would be. I just resent you so much for the

748
00:41:55,880 --> 00:41:58,920
Speaker 1: amount of drama and bullshit they're dragging into my life,

749
00:41:59,000 --> 00:42:01,560
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, And and imagine being it's

750
00:42:01,600 --> 00:42:03,640
Speaker 1: not even like this is something you're just learning about

751
00:42:03,680 --> 00:42:05,959
Speaker 1: this person. This is someone you know has been going

752
00:42:06,000 --> 00:42:09,320
Speaker 1: through this for well over like two decades. At this point,

753
00:42:10,040 --> 00:42:12,000
Speaker 1: you're like, this is not this is not a fluke.

754
00:42:12,400 --> 00:42:14,920
Speaker 1: If you fall back into it again, you're always going

755
00:42:14,960 --> 00:42:16,839
Speaker 1: to fall back into it again. And I'm only going

756
00:42:16,880 --> 00:42:18,319
Speaker 1: to give you this one chance to prove to me

757
00:42:18,360 --> 00:42:20,799
Speaker 1: that you won't because two chances is three, is four

758
00:42:21,080 --> 00:42:23,480
Speaker 1: is five, And that's not true for everyone, and you

759
00:42:23,520 --> 00:42:26,080
Speaker 1: know it wasn't true for him. By a certain point,

760
00:42:26,120 --> 00:42:28,760
Speaker 1: he finally did, and you hope everyone does. But again,

761
00:42:28,840 --> 00:42:31,040
Speaker 1: like we talked about Sara Jessica Parker, that doesn't make

762
00:42:31,080 --> 00:42:34,000
Speaker 1: it your responsibility to wait and keep trying. Yeah, But

763
00:42:34,120 --> 00:42:38,359
Speaker 1: fortunately I guess that ultimatum did work for Robert this time,

764
00:42:38,400 --> 00:42:42,520
Speaker 1: because around July four, two thou three, Robert's driving down

765
00:42:42,520 --> 00:42:45,760
Speaker 1: the Pacific coast highway, so there's a nice breeze, probably

766
00:42:45,880 --> 00:42:50,799
Speaker 1: some cool ocean views, and maybe it's dusk. I'm gonna

767
00:42:50,840 --> 00:42:53,520
Speaker 1: put it at dusk, so there's some lights, but I

768
00:42:53,520 --> 00:42:56,439
Speaker 1: mean it's just getting dark. There's a nice sunset, and

769
00:42:56,760 --> 00:43:00,640
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe he felt a sense of of possibility,

770
00:43:00,920 --> 00:43:03,800
Speaker 1: sense of potential in the air for him. He thought,

771
00:43:03,920 --> 00:43:07,120
Speaker 1: there's you know how that is when you're driving down

772
00:43:07,120 --> 00:43:10,560
Speaker 1: a really nice highway and you're feeling good. Maybe it's

773
00:43:10,600 --> 00:43:13,160
Speaker 1: some good music on and you just kind of feel

774
00:43:13,200 --> 00:43:17,359
Speaker 1: like you can do anything. I think he is kind

775
00:43:17,360 --> 00:43:19,960
Speaker 1: of feeling that, and he said, you know what, this

776
00:43:20,080 --> 00:43:23,080
Speaker 1: is it, this is the time, and he pulled over

777
00:43:23,200 --> 00:43:26,840
Speaker 1: at a Burger King and he threw his drugs into

778
00:43:26,840 --> 00:43:33,040
Speaker 1: the ocean. Excuse me, sir, the fish don't appreciate. A

779
00:43:33,080 --> 00:43:35,520
Speaker 1: couple of weeks later, the fish that ate his crack

780
00:43:35,640 --> 00:43:40,720
Speaker 1: was served at Spago and Tom Hanks had a tummy problem.

781
00:43:43,400 --> 00:43:45,200
Speaker 1: But yeah, so he did throw him in the ocean.

782
00:43:45,239 --> 00:43:46,839
Speaker 1: You can feel in your type of way about that.

783
00:43:48,560 --> 00:43:52,160
Speaker 1: But he was done for good. There was something about

784
00:43:52,239 --> 00:43:56,200
Speaker 1: his relationship with Susan, maybe the stability, the comfort, the caring,

785
00:43:56,280 --> 00:43:58,840
Speaker 1: but also, of course, let's not forget. He was an

786
00:43:58,880 --> 00:44:04,000
Speaker 1: intensive therapy. He was doing meditation and martial arts. I

787
00:44:04,040 --> 00:44:06,759
Speaker 1: mean he was. He was doing a lot for his sobriety.

788
00:44:06,760 --> 00:44:09,520
Speaker 1: It was not just Susan that changed him. So again,

789
00:44:09,760 --> 00:44:13,160
Speaker 1: it's not just one person. He can force you into

790
00:44:13,280 --> 00:44:16,200
Speaker 1: better behavior or a better life. You have to truly

791
00:44:16,200 --> 00:44:18,279
Speaker 1: want it. You have to really work and try a

792
00:44:18,280 --> 00:44:20,080
Speaker 1: lot of different things to get where you need to

793
00:44:20,080 --> 00:44:24,560
Speaker 1: go UM with sobriety or with anything else. And he

794
00:44:24,880 --> 00:44:28,920
Speaker 1: tattooed Susan's name on his shoulder. Yeah, says susie Q

795
00:44:29,440 --> 00:44:32,640
Speaker 1: on his left shoulder. And with that susie Q tattoo,

796
00:44:32,680 --> 00:44:34,879
Speaker 1: We're going to take a little break. We'll be right back,

797
00:44:36,719 --> 00:44:41,000
Speaker 1: and we're back. Robert Downey Jr. Is living it up

798
00:44:41,040 --> 00:44:44,880
Speaker 1: with susie Q. It's two thousand four and his divorce

799
00:44:44,960 --> 00:44:50,320
Speaker 1: from Deborah was finalized. Finally, finally got a divorce. Deborah Um,

800
00:44:50,400 --> 00:44:52,239
Speaker 1: for her part, I haven't found a lot about her.

801
00:44:52,320 --> 00:44:54,480
Speaker 1: She did go into music UM and had I think

802
00:44:54,520 --> 00:44:59,320
Speaker 1: a reasonably successful music career. She was living with Beck's

803
00:44:59,480 --> 00:45:02,600
Speaker 1: drummer for a while and India lived with him for

804
00:45:02,640 --> 00:45:04,480
Speaker 1: a while too, So I think I think that was

805
00:45:04,480 --> 00:45:07,879
Speaker 1: her new Um boyfriend. I don't know whatever came of that,

806
00:45:08,000 --> 00:45:10,799
Speaker 1: but he seemed like a good guy. He was he

807
00:45:10,880 --> 00:45:13,640
Speaker 1: was rooting for Robert and Indiota to have a good

808
00:45:13,680 --> 00:45:17,800
Speaker 1: relationship and Deborrah. We know their divorces finalized that Robert

809
00:45:17,840 --> 00:45:20,839
Speaker 1: was in a better place now and spending more time

810
00:45:20,880 --> 00:45:26,360
Speaker 1: with Indio. So I'm assuming my speculation station is that

811
00:45:26,440 --> 00:45:29,080
Speaker 1: they're getting along great. They're like the the end of

812
00:45:29,120 --> 00:45:33,279
Speaker 1: the Santa Claus uh where she's like, you know, yes,

813
00:45:33,400 --> 00:45:37,439
Speaker 1: I'm probably like better to raise our sun. But I'm

814
00:45:37,480 --> 00:45:40,120
Speaker 1: glad that you're Santa Claus and we all know it now,

815
00:45:40,160 --> 00:45:41,960
Speaker 1: and you know, you know, I'm glad you cleaned your

816
00:45:42,000 --> 00:45:48,359
Speaker 1: ship up. Backs drummers like an Oscar Meyer weenie with

817
00:45:48,480 --> 00:45:53,680
Speaker 1: Judge Reinold. Um, we gotta gotta throw a Santa Claus

818
00:45:53,760 --> 00:45:56,160
Speaker 1: reference in there for him. No, but I agree because

819
00:45:56,320 --> 00:46:01,000
Speaker 1: he also is so like Frank at least now about Like, obviously,

820
00:46:01,040 --> 00:46:03,440
Speaker 1: I'm not blaming anyone for leaving me. I was a nightmare,

821
00:46:03,480 --> 00:46:05,879
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So I feel like, yeah,

822
00:46:05,880 --> 00:46:07,720
Speaker 1: I don't think he probably has a lot of hard feelings.

823
00:46:08,239 --> 00:46:11,160
Speaker 1: Hopefully she got over anything she may have had, right.

824
00:46:11,400 --> 00:46:14,239
Speaker 1: I mean again, Hollywood was mostly on his side and

825
00:46:14,360 --> 00:46:16,799
Speaker 1: rooting for him. Robert and Susan got to work together

826
00:46:16,880 --> 00:46:20,880
Speaker 1: again on a movie called Kiss, Kiss, Bang Bang. I

827
00:46:20,960 --> 00:46:22,920
Speaker 1: love this movie. We gotta watch it again because it's

828
00:46:22,960 --> 00:46:25,680
Speaker 1: been too long, but I remember liking it, loving it,

829
00:46:26,200 --> 00:46:29,120
Speaker 1: and it's him and Val Kilmer, who Susan also got

830
00:46:29,120 --> 00:46:32,640
Speaker 1: brought in. They were considering for the movie casting Benicio

831
00:46:32,719 --> 00:46:35,759
Speaker 1: del Toro or Hugh Grant or even Johnny Knoxville at

832
00:46:35,760 --> 00:46:38,160
Speaker 1: some point, but Susan was working on the film. She said, Hey,

833
00:46:38,200 --> 00:46:41,120
Speaker 1: you know, Robert could do this, and they said, actually,

834
00:46:41,160 --> 00:46:43,319
Speaker 1: you know what, that's a good idea. Let's have him

835
00:46:43,360 --> 00:46:46,880
Speaker 1: read for it. Hey, we like his audition, and nobody's

836
00:46:46,920 --> 00:46:49,160
Speaker 1: paying Robert Downey Jr. To do anything, So the fact

837
00:46:49,200 --> 00:46:51,439
Speaker 1: that this is a fifteen million dollar budget movie means

838
00:46:51,480 --> 00:46:55,200
Speaker 1: we can afford him. Because he was not a high

839
00:46:55,200 --> 00:46:58,280
Speaker 1: dollar actor at that point he was. He was happy

840
00:46:58,280 --> 00:47:00,320
Speaker 1: to get what he could get. Still kind of banked

841
00:47:00,719 --> 00:47:03,080
Speaker 1: career wise. I guess even though people did like him,

842
00:47:03,080 --> 00:47:06,120
Speaker 1: like you're saying, they want him to do better, but

843
00:47:06,200 --> 00:47:09,320
Speaker 1: he's definitely not a box office darling, or he's climbing

844
00:47:09,320 --> 00:47:10,480
Speaker 1: out of it, I would say, in terms of the

845
00:47:10,520 --> 00:47:14,000
Speaker 1: public at this point, everyone was probably kind of waiting

846
00:47:14,000 --> 00:47:17,200
Speaker 1: for it to happen again, you know, because he fooled

847
00:47:17,239 --> 00:47:21,040
Speaker 1: me sixteen times. Shame on us, you know, Robert Downey Jr.

848
00:47:21,080 --> 00:47:25,399
Speaker 1: Is back. Okay, well maybe kids kissing banging, Okay, maybe

849
00:47:25,440 --> 00:47:27,120
Speaker 1: he's really doing at this time. And so in two

850
00:47:27,160 --> 00:47:30,760
Speaker 1: thousand five, they finally tied the knot big, huge, fancy

851
00:47:30,800 --> 00:47:35,000
Speaker 1: ceremony in the Hampton's, Robert's favorite place to spend the summers,

852
00:47:35,080 --> 00:47:39,920
Speaker 1: and his favorite singer Sting performed. Billy Joel performed. I mean,

853
00:47:39,960 --> 00:47:42,120
Speaker 1: we've talked about our wedding and it was pretty freaking cool.

854
00:47:43,040 --> 00:47:45,440
Speaker 1: Sting did not come to it. He didn't, but honestly,

855
00:47:46,160 --> 00:47:49,080
Speaker 1: who invited him there? Yeah, I mean, it's not like

856
00:47:49,120 --> 00:47:53,080
Speaker 1: he turned us down, that's true. We were like, dearest Sting,

857
00:47:53,200 --> 00:47:56,880
Speaker 1: you are not cordially to our wedding because we know

858
00:47:56,920 --> 00:47:59,000
Speaker 1: you're not coming, and this makes us feel better. And

859
00:47:59,040 --> 00:48:01,760
Speaker 1: then he would have showed up out right. That's the secret.

860
00:48:01,800 --> 00:48:05,000
Speaker 1: We should have sent all kinds of people like you

861
00:48:05,080 --> 00:48:09,440
Speaker 1: can't come, staying, don't stand so close to me, staying,

862
00:48:09,560 --> 00:48:11,920
Speaker 1: I'm glad you're here, but I still haven't found what

863
00:48:11,960 --> 00:48:14,960
Speaker 1: I was looking for, staying, you don't have to put

864
00:48:15,000 --> 00:48:17,719
Speaker 1: on the red light to come to our wedding. I

865
00:48:17,760 --> 00:48:20,400
Speaker 1: don't know I'm reaching here at this point, but the

866
00:48:20,480 --> 00:48:26,200
Speaker 1: point is I've been reaching for a long time. Billy

867
00:48:26,320 --> 00:48:29,120
Speaker 1: Joel is here too, We'd better take this wedding uptown.

868
00:48:29,719 --> 00:48:32,080
Speaker 1: Billy Joel came and they said, man, what are you

869
00:48:32,200 --> 00:48:37,960
Speaker 1: doing here there? It is all right, So a big wedding,

870
00:48:38,080 --> 00:48:41,000
Speaker 1: great time, big party. But they're both their careers start

871
00:48:41,080 --> 00:48:44,319
Speaker 1: to take off after their wedding, and it kind of

872
00:48:44,320 --> 00:48:48,040
Speaker 1: started to strain their relationship because Robert went off to

873
00:48:48,080 --> 00:48:52,200
Speaker 1: film good Night and good Luck and Zodiac and Susan

874
00:48:52,280 --> 00:48:55,480
Speaker 1: went on to produce Jodie Foster's The Brave One and

875
00:48:55,560 --> 00:48:58,920
Speaker 1: Hillary Swanks The Reaping, and they decided to enact a

876
00:48:58,920 --> 00:49:01,839
Speaker 1: two week rule so they would never go more than

877
00:49:01,880 --> 00:49:04,799
Speaker 1: a fortnight without seeing each other. They tried to find

878
00:49:04,800 --> 00:49:07,360
Speaker 1: ways to work together, or they would just find weekends

879
00:49:07,360 --> 00:49:10,320
Speaker 1: to meet up, and they didn't end up working together

880
00:49:10,440 --> 00:49:14,480
Speaker 1: very often, but Robert and most of Hollywood actually credits

881
00:49:14,520 --> 00:49:18,279
Speaker 1: Susan with revitalizing his career. Meanwhile, I'm gonna get into

882
00:49:18,360 --> 00:49:20,880
Speaker 1: some deep trivia here that you guys might not know

883
00:49:20,960 --> 00:49:23,680
Speaker 1: about this is the real obscure stuff, the deep cuts

884
00:49:23,680 --> 00:49:25,960
Speaker 1: that you come to us for. Yeah, we's spent a

885
00:49:26,000 --> 00:49:28,400
Speaker 1: lot of time digging, and we heard about this little

886
00:49:28,440 --> 00:49:32,840
Speaker 1: startup company called Walt Disney Pictures, and they've been knocking

887
00:49:32,840 --> 00:49:36,239
Speaker 1: around plans to do an adaptation of these little known

888
00:49:36,280 --> 00:49:42,440
Speaker 1: picture books called Marvel Comics. Right, wow, I know it's yeah,

889
00:49:42,640 --> 00:49:45,000
Speaker 1: I know, and we've we've we may never hear more

890
00:49:45,040 --> 00:49:48,279
Speaker 1: about this, but in two thousand six they picked up

891
00:49:48,320 --> 00:49:52,960
Speaker 1: the rights to a property called iron Man and they

892
00:49:53,400 --> 00:49:56,160
Speaker 1: got this guy John Favreau to come in to direct it.

893
00:49:56,320 --> 00:49:59,160
Speaker 1: John Favreau comes in and he says, look, I want

894
00:49:59,239 --> 00:50:03,879
Speaker 1: a no name as iron Man, Spiderman, X Men. These

895
00:50:03,920 --> 00:50:08,239
Speaker 1: movies didn't coast off of star power, right, So as

896
00:50:08,239 --> 00:50:12,000
Speaker 1: the production developed, Jon Favreau starts thinking differently. He starts

897
00:50:12,000 --> 00:50:14,680
Speaker 1: thinking about Tony Stark. He's like, here, you've got this

898
00:50:15,080 --> 00:50:18,799
Speaker 1: very troubled guy with this dark history that he kind

899
00:50:18,800 --> 00:50:21,319
Speaker 1: of has to grapple with and take on, Like he

900
00:50:21,360 --> 00:50:24,360
Speaker 1: has to reconcile with the bad things that he's done.

901
00:50:24,760 --> 00:50:28,239
Speaker 1: He has to make this comeback that seems impossible, Like

902
00:50:28,280 --> 00:50:30,920
Speaker 1: why would anyone want this guy to come back? He's

903
00:50:31,040 --> 00:50:34,560
Speaker 1: taken a guy who was truly despicable at one point

904
00:50:34,560 --> 00:50:38,319
Speaker 1: in his life and turning him into literally Earth's mightiest hero.

905
00:50:38,680 --> 00:50:41,839
Speaker 1: And he thinks, you know what ship it sounds like

906
00:50:42,080 --> 00:50:44,520
Speaker 1: Robert Downy Jr. Right here, This, this is the Robert

907
00:50:44,560 --> 00:50:47,279
Speaker 1: Downy Jr. Story, trying to make amends for the bad

908
00:50:47,320 --> 00:50:50,280
Speaker 1: things he's done in the past. Disney is like, whoa

909
00:50:50,960 --> 00:50:53,960
Speaker 1: you tell him me, Disney to michaelize the walks down there,

910
00:50:53,960 --> 00:50:58,840
Speaker 1: He says, you're telling me you want the America's crackhead

911
00:51:00,320 --> 00:51:03,840
Speaker 1: on the post for my comic book movie. You know

912
00:51:03,960 --> 00:51:06,560
Speaker 1: they are not having it. They're not gonna put this

913
00:51:06,719 --> 00:51:10,520
Speaker 1: in and out of Prison Tabloid star in the first

914
00:51:10,600 --> 00:51:13,200
Speaker 1: movie of What you Know. No one knows what the

915
00:51:13,280 --> 00:51:14,719
Speaker 1: m CU was going to be at this point, but

916
00:51:14,760 --> 00:51:17,000
Speaker 1: they do plan to franchise at their Like, I'm not

917
00:51:17,080 --> 00:51:21,600
Speaker 1: putting Robert Downey fucking Junior on the poster for this movie.

918
00:51:22,080 --> 00:51:25,440
Speaker 1: That's not Disney like making post Malone into Prince Charming

919
00:51:25,560 --> 00:51:28,680
Speaker 1: or something. Oh no, I hope they don't hear that.

920
00:51:29,080 --> 00:51:33,799
Speaker 1: They probably do it. A lot of stuff changed. Robert

921
00:51:33,840 --> 00:51:38,720
Speaker 1: Downey Jr. Is iron Man, Favreau keeps pushing right. Disney

922
00:51:38,800 --> 00:51:42,440
Speaker 1: was not convinced yet, so Favreau arranged for a screen

923
00:51:42,480 --> 00:51:45,719
Speaker 1: test with Downey and the casting director, whose name was

924
00:51:45,760 --> 00:51:47,960
Speaker 1: Sarah Finn, says that on the day of the tests,

925
00:51:48,239 --> 00:51:51,600
Speaker 1: Robert Downey Jr. Is laughing, He's in great spirits, totally

926
00:51:51,600 --> 00:51:54,160
Speaker 1: at ease, charming as fuck. And when he starts saying

927
00:51:54,160 --> 00:51:59,800
Speaker 1: the lines quote it was magic, everybody, Jon Favreau, Kevin Figy,

928
00:52:00,239 --> 00:52:04,200
Speaker 1: They're all like, that's Iron Man. I'm looking at him

929
00:52:04,440 --> 00:52:06,600
Speaker 1: talking to me. We're saved iron bands here, what do

930
00:52:06,640 --> 00:52:09,520
Speaker 1: you mean? And come on, guys, the rest is history

931
00:52:09,520 --> 00:52:13,200
Speaker 1: of Iron Man. Like were they not absolutely correct in

932
00:52:13,239 --> 00:52:15,799
Speaker 1: that decision? And I mean, even if you are a

933
00:52:15,800 --> 00:52:18,160
Speaker 1: hater of Marvel movies, you have to admit they were

934
00:52:18,280 --> 00:52:21,680
Speaker 1: very successful and they set out what they meant to do,

935
00:52:22,360 --> 00:52:24,480
Speaker 1: which was make a butt ton of money. Same year,

936
00:52:24,719 --> 00:52:27,279
Speaker 1: two thousand eight that Iron Man comes out, we get

937
00:52:27,360 --> 00:52:31,799
Speaker 1: Tropic Thunder, in which Robert Downy Jr. Got an Oscar nomination,

938
00:52:32,000 --> 00:52:35,799
Speaker 1: his second nomination, in a rather controversial role. If you

939
00:52:35,920 --> 00:52:38,480
Speaker 1: are not familiar with Tropic Thunder, this was a film

940
00:52:38,480 --> 00:52:41,000
Speaker 1: where Robert Downy Jr. Was in black face for the

941
00:52:41,160 --> 00:52:45,120
Speaker 1: entire time his character. The movie is about making a movie,

942
00:52:45,840 --> 00:52:49,080
Speaker 1: and his character is a very good actor in the

943
00:52:49,120 --> 00:52:52,880
Speaker 1: line of like Daniel dey lewis Super Method Australia and yeah,

944
00:52:53,000 --> 00:52:55,960
Speaker 1: and his character in the movie within the movie is

945
00:52:56,000 --> 00:52:59,560
Speaker 1: a black soldier, so he's in black face for that movie.

946
00:53:00,160 --> 00:53:02,480
Speaker 1: That's within the movie. I hope I've made that as

947
00:53:02,480 --> 00:53:07,960
Speaker 1: confusing as possible for you. It's uh, you know, not

948
00:53:07,960 --> 00:53:12,080
Speaker 1: not gone uncriticized, and uh, you know, we're certainly not

949
00:53:12,160 --> 00:53:17,680
Speaker 1: here to argue the merits of it. No, no, we're not,

950
00:53:17,840 --> 00:53:22,200
Speaker 1: Downey said in an interview in that you know when

951
00:53:22,200 --> 00:53:24,839
Speaker 1: he first got brought the idea, Ben Stiller wrote this

952
00:53:24,880 --> 00:53:27,680
Speaker 1: movie and stars in it, and when he first brought

953
00:53:27,719 --> 00:53:29,520
Speaker 1: it to Robert Downey Jr. He said, I thought it

954
00:53:29,560 --> 00:53:31,560
Speaker 1: was a terrible idea. You know, this is awful. But

955
00:53:31,640 --> 00:53:34,200
Speaker 1: then he decided, well, what I'm doing is I get

956
00:53:34,239 --> 00:53:38,719
Speaker 1: to hold up this insane, self involved hypocrisy that artists

957
00:53:39,120 --> 00:53:41,480
Speaker 1: think they can get away with in movies. Like he's

958
00:53:41,520 --> 00:53:44,160
Speaker 1: saying that that's kind of the point, is like showing

959
00:53:44,360 --> 00:53:47,920
Speaker 1: this pretentious actor thinking that it's okay for him to

960
00:53:47,960 --> 00:53:51,359
Speaker 1: do this. He said he spoke to black audiences about

961
00:53:51,360 --> 00:53:53,480
Speaker 1: the movie. They they screened it for black audiences. It

962
00:53:53,600 --> 00:53:56,239
Speaker 1: tested really well, he said, of them were like, dude,

963
00:53:56,239 --> 00:53:58,120
Speaker 1: this is great, And he said, I can't disagree with

964
00:53:58,160 --> 00:54:00,200
Speaker 1: the other ten percent. He said, I think that it's

965
00:54:00,200 --> 00:54:02,560
Speaker 1: never an excuse to just do something that's out of

966
00:54:02,600 --> 00:54:05,320
Speaker 1: place and out of time. But to me, this blasted

967
00:54:05,360 --> 00:54:07,960
Speaker 1: the cap on the issue. Sometimes you just gotta go Yeah,

968
00:54:08,080 --> 00:54:11,120
Speaker 1: I fed up. But he says, quote tropic Thunder is

969
00:54:11,160 --> 00:54:14,000
Speaker 1: about how wrong black face is. So I take exception.

970
00:54:14,280 --> 00:54:16,920
Speaker 1: I totally hear what he's saying in a way, because

971
00:54:17,040 --> 00:54:19,160
Speaker 1: this is a period of time and comedy, as we know,

972
00:54:19,239 --> 00:54:21,400
Speaker 1: we were doing comedy at this time, so it's a

973
00:54:21,520 --> 00:54:24,839
Speaker 1: very shock comedy was really in and I think that's

974
00:54:24,880 --> 00:54:27,520
Speaker 1: what the kind of the thing was was, It's okay

975
00:54:27,560 --> 00:54:29,960
Speaker 1: as long as I'm showing that this is a horrible person,

976
00:54:30,160 --> 00:54:32,560
Speaker 1: so it's like a person you're not supposed to admire

977
00:54:32,920 --> 00:54:36,239
Speaker 1: or model yourself on or something. But also I think

978
00:54:36,280 --> 00:54:38,839
Speaker 1: it was sort of like at the time, everybody had

979
00:54:38,840 --> 00:54:42,479
Speaker 1: this very naive notion that nobody, everybody already knows black

980
00:54:42,520 --> 00:54:44,799
Speaker 1: faces wrong, so this it's okay to laugh at it

981
00:54:44,880 --> 00:54:47,719
Speaker 1: now and have these jokes. And then it became very

982
00:54:47,719 --> 00:54:50,439
Speaker 1: clear pretty quickly that no people don't know that that's

983
00:54:50,440 --> 00:54:53,160
Speaker 1: not okay. People are dressing up like that. People are

984
00:54:53,200 --> 00:54:56,480
Speaker 1: doing that and it's not cool, and they're just you know,

985
00:54:56,640 --> 00:54:59,120
Speaker 1: I think that that takes the funny away from it

986
00:54:59,400 --> 00:55:02,520
Speaker 1: that used to exist in two eight when we had this,

987
00:55:03,320 --> 00:55:06,120
Speaker 1: especially white comedians were like, oh great, it's a post

988
00:55:06,200 --> 00:55:09,480
Speaker 1: racial society. We've got a black president, so now we

989
00:55:09,520 --> 00:55:12,279
Speaker 1: can really make fun of racist by doing racist things

990
00:55:12,360 --> 00:55:14,560
Speaker 1: because it's just funny to see how stupid they are

991
00:55:14,600 --> 00:55:16,800
Speaker 1: with their dumb ship. And then you're like, oh, actually,

992
00:55:16,840 --> 00:55:19,640
Speaker 1: people are totally saying that, right, and it's not funny.

993
00:55:19,800 --> 00:55:22,040
Speaker 1: And now we're like, wow, that's really fucked up and

994
00:55:22,080 --> 00:55:24,960
Speaker 1: not funny because people were totally like, oh cool, Now

995
00:55:25,000 --> 00:55:27,719
Speaker 1: I can just be like that. Yeah. So I think

996
00:55:27,800 --> 00:55:30,919
Speaker 1: looking at it through that lens and with that analysis,

997
00:55:31,640 --> 00:55:35,439
Speaker 1: it's something. But I certainly also wouldn't begrudge anyone being

998
00:55:35,480 --> 00:55:38,040
Speaker 1: offended by it because that, again, that's also an image

999
00:55:38,080 --> 00:55:43,439
Speaker 1: that is representative of a lot of harm. And if

1000
00:55:43,480 --> 00:55:45,880
Speaker 1: someone saw that and said I don't want to fucking

1001
00:55:45,920 --> 00:55:48,040
Speaker 1: see that ever again, don't show that to me, don't

1002
00:55:48,040 --> 00:55:51,040
Speaker 1: do that. Who are we to not immediately say okay,

1003
00:55:51,040 --> 00:55:53,440
Speaker 1: I won't right that's not hard. It's not hard to

1004
00:55:53,480 --> 00:55:56,640
Speaker 1: not do something. We act like you asked me not

1005
00:55:56,760 --> 00:56:00,600
Speaker 1: to do something. That's that's my freedoms. I mean, it's

1006
00:56:00,600 --> 00:56:03,680
Speaker 1: also very easy to just say okay, I won't done. Done,

1007
00:56:03,719 --> 00:56:06,720
Speaker 1: it's over, moving on. So anyway, black face not cool,

1008
00:56:06,760 --> 00:56:09,680
Speaker 1: We're not into it. We solved the tropic thunder discussion.

1009
00:56:10,440 --> 00:56:13,880
Speaker 1: The year Iron Man was released, Susan's working on Rock

1010
00:56:13,960 --> 00:56:17,440
Speaker 1: and Roller in London for Guy Ritchie, and Guy Ritchie

1011
00:56:17,480 --> 00:56:19,920
Speaker 1: had just been hired by Warner Brothers to shoot his

1012
00:56:20,000 --> 00:56:24,280
Speaker 1: first big budget action tent pole. Sherlock Holmes and Robert

1013
00:56:24,320 --> 00:56:26,359
Speaker 1: came to visit Susan because you know, they still had

1014
00:56:26,360 --> 00:56:29,400
Speaker 1: their two week rule going on at this time. So

1015
00:56:29,440 --> 00:56:31,279
Speaker 1: he comes out to visit her, and he heard about

1016
00:56:31,320 --> 00:56:34,120
Speaker 1: the movie and he's like, oh, I like to be

1017
00:56:34,160 --> 00:56:36,839
Speaker 1: in that. Well, let me get someone out, Sherlock. I know, right,

1018
00:56:36,920 --> 00:56:38,960
Speaker 1: let me come from my mom home. He like pops

1019
00:56:38,960 --> 00:56:41,160
Speaker 1: into Guy Richie's office with a with a pipe and

1020
00:56:41,239 --> 00:56:44,040
Speaker 1: a magnifying glass. He's like, oh, nothing, I was just

1021
00:56:44,120 --> 00:56:49,000
Speaker 1: looking for my clues. I solved the mystery of who's

1022
00:56:49,040 --> 00:56:51,799
Speaker 1: going to play Sherlock Holmes in your movie? And it's

1023
00:56:51,920 --> 00:56:56,000
Speaker 1: me Robert Dottie Jr. No, he did not do that.

1024
00:56:56,160 --> 00:56:59,880
Speaker 1: Susan as usual fucking handled this ship. So because Richie

1025
00:57:00,080 --> 00:57:03,120
Speaker 1: felt like Robert Downey Jr. Was too old for the role,

1026
00:57:03,239 --> 00:57:06,400
Speaker 1: he originally had thought that Sherlock Holmes was going to

1027
00:57:06,520 --> 00:57:10,279
Speaker 1: be like a Batman Begins style origin story, and it

1028
00:57:10,360 --> 00:57:12,560
Speaker 1: was going to be Holmes is a young man. He's

1029
00:57:12,640 --> 00:57:14,720
Speaker 1: kind of on a learning curb. He's not the genius

1030
00:57:14,760 --> 00:57:20,040
Speaker 1: detective that we're all familiar with. But Susan, you know,

1031
00:57:20,240 --> 00:57:22,720
Speaker 1: she knows what to do, and so she gets to

1032
00:57:22,720 --> 00:57:26,760
Speaker 1: talk to him, and she convinces him that Roberts the

1033
00:57:26,840 --> 00:57:29,840
Speaker 1: right choice because she said, when you read a description

1034
00:57:29,840 --> 00:57:33,320
Speaker 1: of Holmes quirky, kind of nuts, it could be a

1035
00:57:33,360 --> 00:57:37,480
Speaker 1: description of Robert. I will like to say that the

1036
00:57:37,600 --> 00:57:41,760
Speaker 1: best Sherlock Holmes ever committed to Sally Lloyd is the

1037
00:57:41,800 --> 00:57:45,720
Speaker 1: great Mass detective. Speaking of quirky and nuts. He was

1038
00:57:45,760 --> 00:57:49,720
Speaker 1: so cute, he was hilarious, he was crazy. I loved him. Anyways,

1039
00:57:49,720 --> 00:57:53,080
Speaker 1: a great mass detective underrated. So anyway, Susan definitely got

1040
00:57:53,080 --> 00:57:57,320
Speaker 1: her way. Ritchie was convinced. He cast Robert Downey Jr.

1041
00:57:57,440 --> 00:58:00,840
Speaker 1: And the movie cost ninety million dollars to and it

1042
00:58:00,920 --> 00:58:04,600
Speaker 1: earned over five hundred million dollars at the box office.

1043
00:58:05,440 --> 00:58:08,800
Speaker 1: So with these three movies with Iron Man, Tropic Thunder

1044
00:58:09,000 --> 00:58:12,200
Speaker 1: and Sherlock Holmes, Robert Downey Jr. Became one of the

1045
00:58:12,280 --> 00:58:20,120
Speaker 1: most bankable stars in Hollywood. That's outrageous from years earlier,

1046
00:58:20,360 --> 00:58:23,000
Speaker 1: mere years, and it takes two to four years to

1047
00:58:23,000 --> 00:58:26,160
Speaker 1: make a movie. This guy was literally in prison and

1048
00:58:26,200 --> 00:58:30,520
Speaker 1: then relapsing and then now he's fucking Robert Downy Jr.

1049
00:58:30,560 --> 00:58:32,960
Speaker 1: As we know him today. I mean, everybody loves him.

1050
00:58:32,960 --> 00:58:36,200
Speaker 1: Everybody wants more. I want more all the time. It's incredible.

1051
00:58:36,240 --> 00:58:38,440
Speaker 1: What a story, what a what a what a comeback

1052
00:58:38,480 --> 00:58:43,080
Speaker 1: story of veritable Tony Stark level surgeants. So Robert and

1053
00:58:43,120 --> 00:58:47,360
Speaker 1: Susan they're doing great, everything's going great, but their relationship

1054
00:58:47,600 --> 00:58:49,800
Speaker 1: is not. This two week rule thing is not working

1055
00:58:49,800 --> 00:58:51,960
Speaker 1: out for them. They're like this every two weeks of

1056
00:58:52,000 --> 00:58:55,240
Speaker 1: seeing you sucks, yeah every day or whatever. And they

1057
00:58:55,280 --> 00:58:57,760
Speaker 1: decided it needs to be a no reek rule and

1058
00:58:57,800 --> 00:59:00,800
Speaker 1: they will only work together from now on. So they

1059
00:59:00,880 --> 00:59:04,160
Speaker 1: formed a production company called Team Downey and Guy Richie

1060
00:59:04,160 --> 00:59:07,640
Speaker 1: called them the perfect symbiotic marriage and that his relationship

1061
00:59:07,680 --> 00:59:10,440
Speaker 1: with Susan makes him a joy to work with. In fact,

1062
00:59:10,480 --> 00:59:12,959
Speaker 1: he said Robert would be a pain in the ice

1063
00:59:13,320 --> 00:59:16,640
Speaker 1: if he didn't have Susan to place him. I think

1064
00:59:16,680 --> 00:59:18,880
Speaker 1: that's exactly how he sounds. I thought he was here,

1065
00:59:19,080 --> 00:59:21,240
Speaker 1: I know, well, he just came in and then he

1066
00:59:21,280 --> 00:59:24,120
Speaker 1: walked out to say that one thing. She did not

1067
00:59:24,320 --> 00:59:27,040
Speaker 1: exactly erase that Darth Vader side of him or anything

1068
00:59:27,080 --> 00:59:30,000
Speaker 1: like that, but she did help him own it. I

1069
00:59:30,040 --> 00:59:33,280
Speaker 1: guess and and and control it and not act like

1070
00:59:33,320 --> 00:59:37,600
Speaker 1: a jerk. And Robert says, it's true. Behind every good

1071
00:59:37,600 --> 00:59:40,640
Speaker 1: man there's an incredible woman. I owe a huge amount,

1072
00:59:40,760 --> 00:59:44,160
Speaker 1: if not all, of my success to Susan. Yeah, and

1073
00:59:44,200 --> 00:59:45,800
Speaker 1: he was a good fit for her, it must be

1074
00:59:45,840 --> 00:59:49,880
Speaker 1: said because Susan also had good changes in her life

1075
00:59:49,920 --> 00:59:53,160
Speaker 1: once she was partnered up with Robert. She said she

1076
00:59:53,200 --> 00:59:55,480
Speaker 1: was too focused on work, She was rigid, she was

1077
00:59:55,520 --> 00:59:57,920
Speaker 1: totally focused on her career. She did not care much

1078
00:59:57,960 --> 01:00:02,120
Speaker 1: about personal relationships or having fun, and meeting Robert completely

1079
01:00:02,120 --> 01:00:05,320
Speaker 1: opened her up. She said, I had someone who came

1080
01:00:05,360 --> 01:00:09,320
Speaker 1: in as a tornado, this creative, beautiful ball of insane

1081
01:00:09,480 --> 01:00:12,600
Speaker 1: energy and passion. Um. Although she says there were times

1082
01:00:12,840 --> 01:00:14,560
Speaker 1: that she'll just be trying to get ready for bed,

1083
01:00:14,760 --> 01:00:18,160
Speaker 1: and Robert will have some sudden brainstorm and she'll be like,

1084
01:00:18,680 --> 01:00:23,000
Speaker 1: I can't take this right now. He's an off switch

1085
01:00:23,080 --> 01:00:26,160
Speaker 1: for him. She's like, go take a walk. So from

1086
01:00:26,200 --> 01:00:30,520
Speaker 1: then on they are working together with with Team Downey.

1087
01:00:30,560 --> 01:00:34,600
Speaker 1: They settled down into there. They settled down into their

1088
01:00:34,720 --> 01:00:37,920
Speaker 1: thirteen million dollar house in Malibu, if you can call

1089
01:00:37,960 --> 01:00:41,880
Speaker 1: that settling down. But they have a son in named

1090
01:00:41,880 --> 01:00:45,120
Speaker 1: Exton Elias. Great name. If I do same was on

1091
01:00:45,200 --> 01:00:50,000
Speaker 1: myself as a fellow Elias, I gotta say it works.

1092
01:00:50,840 --> 01:00:54,840
Speaker 1: And then they have a daughter named Avery Roel. So

1093
01:00:54,960 --> 01:00:58,800
Speaker 1: Team Downey got together and they made this movie The Judge.

1094
01:00:59,240 --> 01:01:01,040
Speaker 1: I don't know, we didn't see it. It didn't get

1095
01:01:01,040 --> 01:01:03,400
Speaker 1: crazy interviews or anything. I don't know how well. It

1096
01:01:03,440 --> 01:01:07,040
Speaker 1: did not not something that's still in the zeitgeist today.

1097
01:01:07,080 --> 01:01:10,200
Speaker 1: And then Um, they did do Little, which I think

1098
01:01:10,320 --> 01:01:13,240
Speaker 1: might still be in the zeitgeist today as a terrible movie.

1099
01:01:13,320 --> 01:01:15,840
Speaker 1: I don't know. We didn't see it. Um, and I

1100
01:01:15,920 --> 01:01:18,160
Speaker 1: felt bad because it seemed like he was having a

1101
01:01:18,240 --> 01:01:19,880
Speaker 1: lot of fun. Um, And I'm glad they got to

1102
01:01:19,880 --> 01:01:23,840
Speaker 1: do something together. But it was not well received. But however,

1103
01:01:24,120 --> 01:01:28,080
Speaker 1: they did also just produce the show Sweet Tooth on Netflix,

1104
01:01:28,080 --> 01:01:30,080
Speaker 1: which we have not yet watched, but I am hearing

1105
01:01:30,480 --> 01:01:32,400
Speaker 1: great things about and I really want to watch it,

1106
01:01:33,000 --> 01:01:35,360
Speaker 1: So that's a that's a win for a team Downey.

1107
01:01:35,400 --> 01:01:38,240
Speaker 1: What's funny is that he's Robert Downey Jr. Said in

1108
01:01:38,240 --> 01:01:41,439
Speaker 1: an interview recently. I used to say, if I ever

1109
01:01:41,600 --> 01:01:45,680
Speaker 1: ended up as a forty something, remarried, marketable, big action

1110
01:01:45,760 --> 01:01:48,240
Speaker 1: movie dad living in a cozy cul de sac in

1111
01:01:48,320 --> 01:01:51,280
Speaker 1: suburban l A, please just walk up and put two

1112
01:01:51,280 --> 01:01:53,600
Speaker 1: in the back of my head. But now he says,

1113
01:01:53,720 --> 01:01:58,240
Speaker 1: I am that guy, so please don't. Okay, presumably saying

1114
01:01:58,400 --> 01:02:00,240
Speaker 1: please do not walk up and put two in the

1115
01:02:00,280 --> 01:02:02,120
Speaker 1: back of my head. I was kidding, I was this

1116
01:02:02,280 --> 01:02:07,560
Speaker 1: is great. I thought it was actually great. Unfortunately, his

1117
01:02:07,800 --> 01:02:11,880
Speaker 1: first son, Indio Falconer Downey, has had a few run

1118
01:02:11,880 --> 01:02:16,160
Speaker 1: ins with the law and some substance abuse issues. Um

1119
01:02:16,200 --> 01:02:18,880
Speaker 1: Indio has been focused on his music and Robert tried

1120
01:02:18,920 --> 01:02:22,000
Speaker 1: to stay as uninvolved in his career as possible because,

1121
01:02:22,040 --> 01:02:25,320
Speaker 1: as he says, nepotism usually does more harm than good.

1122
01:02:25,400 --> 01:02:28,760
Speaker 1: But he does say unfortunately, there's a genetic component to addiction,

1123
01:02:28,920 --> 01:02:32,880
Speaker 1: and Indio has likely inherited it, but he's fully committed

1124
01:02:32,920 --> 01:02:35,800
Speaker 1: to helping his son make a full recovery, and we

1125
01:02:35,920 --> 01:02:40,120
Speaker 1: hope he does too. We do inten. Robert's mother, Elsie,

1126
01:02:40,120 --> 01:02:43,520
Speaker 1: passed away, and in a tribute on Facebook, he wrote

1127
01:02:43,520 --> 01:02:47,880
Speaker 1: about her just really intense and remarkable life and her

1128
01:02:47,880 --> 01:02:51,120
Speaker 1: struggle with drugs and alcohol and this amazing recovery she made.

1129
01:02:51,440 --> 01:02:54,080
Speaker 1: Remember she went to rehab in n He says she

1130
01:02:54,120 --> 01:02:55,800
Speaker 1: called him out of the blue in two thousand four

1131
01:02:55,960 --> 01:02:58,720
Speaker 1: when he was in really bad shape, and he quote,

1132
01:02:58,920 --> 01:03:01,680
Speaker 1: I admitted everything to her. I don't remember what she said,

1133
01:03:01,760 --> 01:03:05,640
Speaker 1: but I haven't drank or used since. So that turn

1134
01:03:06,320 --> 01:03:08,800
Speaker 1: for him. I think we can also credit to speaking

1135
01:03:08,840 --> 01:03:11,360
Speaker 1: to his mother. Whatever that phone call was. Maybe, like

1136
01:03:11,400 --> 01:03:13,880
Speaker 1: you said, he'd seen obviously this life that she'd led

1137
01:03:13,880 --> 01:03:16,280
Speaker 1: and the struggle, struggles and challenges that she had through

1138
01:03:16,320 --> 01:03:18,919
Speaker 1: a lot of his early life, and what it meant

1139
01:03:19,120 --> 01:03:20,800
Speaker 1: to finally got it and that it was possible to

1140
01:03:20,800 --> 01:03:23,120
Speaker 1: get out of that. Yeah. And I don't think that

1141
01:03:23,200 --> 01:03:27,000
Speaker 1: when when you're ready, it's any one thing that gets

1142
01:03:27,000 --> 01:03:30,720
Speaker 1: you there. I think it's a culmination of lots of things. Yeah.

1143
01:03:31,040 --> 01:03:33,640
Speaker 1: But he called her his role model as an actor

1144
01:03:33,920 --> 01:03:36,720
Speaker 1: and as a woman who got sober and stayed that way.

1145
01:03:36,920 --> 01:03:43,400
Speaker 1: He says, my ambition, tenacity, loyalty, moods, grandiosity, occasional passive aggression,

1146
01:03:43,840 --> 01:03:46,560
Speaker 1: and my faith. That's all her and I wouldn't have

1147
01:03:46,560 --> 01:03:49,640
Speaker 1: had it any other way. Two very important women in

1148
01:03:49,800 --> 01:03:53,600
Speaker 1: his life, for sure, for sure, and and gave us

1149
01:03:53,800 --> 01:03:57,240
Speaker 1: Herbert Dohnny Jr. And the m c U. Dare say,

1150
01:03:57,480 --> 01:03:59,919
Speaker 1: had this not all went down exactly the way it did,

1151
01:04:00,320 --> 01:04:04,320
Speaker 1: we might not have WandaVision, we might not have Catain

1152
01:04:04,320 --> 01:04:06,800
Speaker 1: America and the Winter Soldier. And it's it's a it's

1153
01:04:06,840 --> 01:04:11,280
Speaker 1: a wild story of drug addiction and overcoming that sobriety

1154
01:04:11,280 --> 01:04:13,600
Speaker 1: and things like that, not something either of us has

1155
01:04:13,640 --> 01:04:15,760
Speaker 1: a ton of experience with. I do want to bring

1156
01:04:15,880 --> 01:04:18,880
Speaker 1: up that I'm amazed by this story. I think it's awesome,

1157
01:04:18,880 --> 01:04:20,640
Speaker 1: and I think it's a great I think he's a

1158
01:04:20,640 --> 01:04:23,920
Speaker 1: great role model for anyone who is going through substance

1159
01:04:23,960 --> 01:04:26,160
Speaker 1: abuse and looking to get out of it. And this

1160
01:04:26,240 --> 01:04:29,240
Speaker 1: idea that it's never really too late until it is,

1161
01:04:29,480 --> 01:04:33,440
Speaker 1: and that the systems didn't work. What he needed was

1162
01:04:33,760 --> 01:04:38,200
Speaker 1: a wake up call and therapy and support and other

1163
01:04:38,520 --> 01:04:42,439
Speaker 1: things to focus on, like meditation, yoga, whatever worked for him.

1164
01:04:42,680 --> 01:04:46,400
Speaker 1: But we also can't separate that from the fact that

1165
01:04:46,560 --> 01:04:49,680
Speaker 1: he had access to all this ship. I mean, he

1166
01:04:49,880 --> 01:04:54,400
Speaker 1: literally his job, like we said, directors didn't care. They

1167
01:04:54,400 --> 01:04:57,080
Speaker 1: were like, whatever, we'll hire him. But meanwhile, there's people

1168
01:04:57,080 --> 01:04:59,280
Speaker 1: who like just smoke weed and they can't keep their

1169
01:04:59,360 --> 01:05:01,720
Speaker 1: job out of fast food place. Like that's kind of

1170
01:05:01,760 --> 01:05:06,920
Speaker 1: outrageous the discrepancy there, And so I think contextualizing this

1171
01:05:07,000 --> 01:05:09,400
Speaker 1: and saying that, yes, this is the root someone needs

1172
01:05:09,440 --> 01:05:12,560
Speaker 1: to go. It's not just for movie stars, right, Like,

1173
01:05:12,680 --> 01:05:15,000
Speaker 1: we need that kind of level of support for everyone

1174
01:05:15,200 --> 01:05:18,600
Speaker 1: and not just locking people up and saying get better

1175
01:05:18,720 --> 01:05:20,920
Speaker 1: or else will lock you up again. And the mercy

1176
01:05:21,040 --> 01:05:24,920
Speaker 1: shown to him is not But who was getting arrested

1177
01:05:24,920 --> 01:05:29,520
Speaker 1: and convicted for crack in the nineties arguably was introduced

1178
01:05:29,520 --> 01:05:33,360
Speaker 1: into minority community specifically to disrupt them and suck their

1179
01:05:33,360 --> 01:05:35,760
Speaker 1: whole ship up. So it's like, you know, he got

1180
01:05:35,920 --> 01:05:38,960
Speaker 1: a different treatment certainly than than a lot of people

1181
01:05:39,120 --> 01:05:42,400
Speaker 1: the probably exact same judge saw for the exact same offense.

1182
01:05:43,240 --> 01:05:44,920
Speaker 1: And I know that we had that one judge that

1183
01:05:45,000 --> 01:05:47,480
Speaker 1: was like, I don't care who you are, I'm throwing

1184
01:05:47,520 --> 01:05:50,400
Speaker 1: the book at you or whatever. And that's nice, but

1185
01:05:50,520 --> 01:05:52,920
Speaker 1: I don't think he got quite the same you know,

1186
01:05:53,040 --> 01:05:55,640
Speaker 1: they had they had they threw a different book. I

1187
01:05:55,640 --> 01:05:57,400
Speaker 1: know he said he threw the wig at me and everything,

1188
01:05:57,400 --> 01:05:59,720
Speaker 1: but he didn't. I promised you, Robert, he did not

1189
01:05:59,800 --> 01:06:01,680
Speaker 1: throw the wig, are you Because first of all, we

1190
01:06:01,720 --> 01:06:04,120
Speaker 1: don't do that in America. It's a British thing. But

1191
01:06:04,720 --> 01:06:09,920
Speaker 1: so but also you know, I think there were that

1192
01:06:10,040 --> 01:06:12,200
Speaker 1: was wasn't that around the time that they were starting

1193
01:06:12,200 --> 01:06:15,480
Speaker 1: to have um mandatory minimum sensing and stuff like that

1194
01:06:15,520 --> 01:06:18,280
Speaker 1: for drugs, and I mean that's the War on drugs

1195
01:06:18,360 --> 01:06:20,440
Speaker 1: was around that time, right, and so it was starting

1196
01:06:20,480 --> 01:06:22,520
Speaker 1: to be you get twenty years even if you have

1197
01:06:22,640 --> 01:06:26,560
Speaker 1: not hardly anything on you we still have people languishing

1198
01:06:26,720 --> 01:06:29,520
Speaker 1: in prison today because of some drugs they did when

1199
01:06:29,520 --> 01:06:33,440
Speaker 1: they were children essentially or just dumb, and they're not

1200
01:06:33,480 --> 01:06:36,360
Speaker 1: given a chance to to be rehabilitated, to come out

1201
01:06:36,480 --> 01:06:41,280
Speaker 1: and find their Susan Levin. Yeah, so anyway, just want

1202
01:06:41,280 --> 01:06:46,440
Speaker 1: to always point out the iniquities of the world. But yeah, overall,

1203
01:06:46,640 --> 01:06:50,400
Speaker 1: happy that we have evolved the conversation about addiction to

1204
01:06:50,600 --> 01:06:53,880
Speaker 1: at some point, at some to something different. Anyway, And

1205
01:06:53,920 --> 01:06:56,600
Speaker 1: I hear that Robert Downey Jr. Also on a personal

1206
01:06:56,960 --> 01:06:58,680
Speaker 1: you know, we're in Atlanta, so we've got a lot

1207
01:06:58,680 --> 01:07:01,360
Speaker 1: of friends that worked on some of the Marvel movies

1208
01:07:01,400 --> 01:07:04,840
Speaker 1: and things. And he's supposed to be super nice. From

1209
01:07:04,840 --> 01:07:09,160
Speaker 1: what I hear, he's a really really open and kind person.

1210
01:07:09,480 --> 01:07:13,240
Speaker 1: He's very generous um and he's, as I understand it,

1211
01:07:13,280 --> 01:07:16,560
Speaker 1: also putting that back into the world. And his main

1212
01:07:16,720 --> 01:07:24,480
Speaker 1: focus right now is environmental technology, trying to fix environmental issues,

1213
01:07:24,520 --> 01:07:28,640
Speaker 1: global warming and climate change, things like that through Tony

1214
01:07:28,680 --> 01:07:31,680
Speaker 1: Stark level tech. Like that's really what he's taken from this.

1215
01:07:31,760 --> 01:07:34,520
Speaker 1: And I heard him say in an interview that's because

1216
01:07:34,720 --> 01:07:37,560
Speaker 1: he realized if he shows up at a tech conference,

1217
01:07:37,680 --> 01:07:40,920
Speaker 1: people listen because he's Iron Man and they know he's not.

1218
01:07:41,040 --> 01:07:43,080
Speaker 1: They're like, we know you're not really Tony Stark, you're

1219
01:07:43,120 --> 01:07:45,360
Speaker 1: an actor, but just connecting that in their brain is

1220
01:07:45,520 --> 01:07:48,680
Speaker 1: enough to make people take it seriously. So he's using that,

1221
01:07:48,800 --> 01:07:50,560
Speaker 1: you know, for good if you can. It's kind of

1222
01:07:50,600 --> 01:07:53,680
Speaker 1: like that movie early on in his career that made

1223
01:07:53,720 --> 01:07:58,120
Speaker 1: him more, made him worse. It's like this character influenced

1224
01:07:58,160 --> 01:08:01,400
Speaker 1: him in a good way thanks to take on those

1225
01:08:01,440 --> 01:08:04,600
Speaker 1: aspects of that character that are like I'm going to

1226
01:08:04,640 --> 01:08:08,000
Speaker 1: fund some technology that can fundamentally change the world and

1227
01:08:08,160 --> 01:08:14,200
Speaker 1: for the better. Great callback, You're welcome. No, no surprise here.

1228
01:08:14,440 --> 01:08:16,800
Speaker 1: We love well iron Man, and so we love Robert

1229
01:08:16,840 --> 01:08:19,760
Speaker 1: Jenny Jr. I wish him and Susan the best. Yeah,

1230
01:08:19,800 --> 01:08:22,160
Speaker 1: even though we'll probably not gonna watch Do Little, No,

1231
01:08:22,560 --> 01:08:25,200
Speaker 1: we're not, but we will watch Sweet Tooth. Yeah, and

1232
01:08:25,240 --> 01:08:26,800
Speaker 1: I hope they have better movies than Do Little in

1233
01:08:26,800 --> 01:08:31,559
Speaker 1: the future. But why don't you let us know what

1234
01:08:31,680 --> 01:08:35,080
Speaker 1: you think? Yeah? This is our first kind of contemporary one.

1235
01:08:35,120 --> 01:08:38,160
Speaker 1: I think it's it's our first one. I'm not not

1236
01:08:38,439 --> 01:08:40,719
Speaker 1: where the people are still alive, but it's very much

1237
01:08:41,439 --> 01:08:44,040
Speaker 1: present day. Yeah, this is still there. This romance is

1238
01:08:44,080 --> 01:08:47,120
Speaker 1: still happening, it's still going on. There's much to learn

1239
01:08:47,160 --> 01:08:48,680
Speaker 1: and much to see and do. We would love to

1240
01:08:48,680 --> 01:08:51,439
Speaker 1: hear what you think, because since we've done mostly historical

1241
01:08:51,479 --> 01:08:54,120
Speaker 1: stuff up to now. Please tell us if you like

1242
01:08:54,280 --> 01:08:55,800
Speaker 1: this kind of thing, if you want more of this

1243
01:08:56,080 --> 01:09:01,160
Speaker 1: or less. I don't know, but yeah, email us romance

1244
01:09:01,200 --> 01:09:04,559
Speaker 1: at i heeart media dot com. Hit us up on

1245
01:09:04,600 --> 01:09:09,200
Speaker 1: Instagram and Twitter. I'm at o Grade, It's Eli, I'm

1246
01:09:09,280 --> 01:09:13,760
Speaker 1: at Dianamite Boom, and we're both at ridic romance on

1247
01:09:13,800 --> 01:09:15,360
Speaker 1: both those platforms as well. If you just want to

1248
01:09:15,400 --> 01:09:18,040
Speaker 1: hit the show up, We're so glad you all tuned in. Uh,

1249
01:09:18,160 --> 01:09:21,200
Speaker 1: we're so glad to bring to you the gospel of

1250
01:09:21,200 --> 01:09:26,960
Speaker 1: Iron Man and Susan, who's awesome too. Yes, Susan is

1251
01:09:27,080 --> 01:09:29,559
Speaker 1: totally cool. Love you, Susan. We don't want to keep

1252
01:09:29,600 --> 01:09:31,400
Speaker 1: you too long. We don't want to sit here in

1253
01:09:31,400 --> 01:09:34,040
Speaker 1: this hot bathroom for too long. And so thanks for

1254
01:09:34,120 --> 01:09:37,000
Speaker 1: joining us for another episode and we'll see you again soon.

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01:09:37,200 --> 01:09:41,479
Speaker 1: So long, so long, friends, It's time to go. Thanks

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01:09:41,520 --> 01:09:45,519
Speaker 1: so listening to our show? Tell your friends name's uncles

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01:09:45,560 --> 01:09:48,400
Speaker 1: in this? To listen to a show, ridiculous Roll this