Downey stark

Robert John Downey Jr. (born April 4, 1965) is an American actor. His career has been characterized by critical and popular success in his youth, followed by a period of substance abuse and legal troubles, before a resurgence of commercial success later in his career. In 2008, Downey was named by Time magazine among the 100 most influential people in the world,[2][3] and from 2013 to 2015, he was listed by Forbes as Hollywood's highest-paid actor.

At the age of five, he made his acting debut in his father Robert Downey Sr.'s film Pound in 1970. He subsequently worked with the Brat Pack in the teen films Weird Science (1985) and Less than Zero (1987). In 1992, Downey portrayed the title character in the biopic Chaplin, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor and won a BAFTA Award. Following a stint at the Corcoran Substance Abuse Treatment Facility on drug charges, he joined the TV series Ally McBeal, for which he won a Golden Globe Award. He was fired from the show in the wake of drug charges in 2000 and 2001. He stayed in a court-ordered drug treatment program and has maintained his sobriety since 2003.

Initially, completion bond companies would not insure Downey, until Mel Gibson paid the insurance bond for the 2003 film The Singing Detective. He went on to star in the black comedy Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005), the thriller Zodiac (2007), and the action comedy Tropic Thunder (2008); for the latter, he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Downey gained global recognition for starring as Tony Stark/Iron Man in ten films within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, beginning with Iron Man (2008), and leading up to Avengers: Endgame (2019). He has also played the title character in Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes (2009), which earned him his second Golden Globe, and its sequel, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011). Downey has also taken on dramatic parts in The Judge (2014) and Oppenheimer

Robert John Downey Jr. was born on April 4, 1965, in Manhattan, New York City, the younger of two children. His father, Robert Downey Sr., was an actor and filmmaker, while his mother, Elsie Ann (née Ford), was an actress who appeared in Downey Sr.'s films. Downey's father was of half Lithuanian Jewish, one-quarter Hungarian Jewish, and one-quarter Irish descent, while Downey's mother had Scottish, German, and Swiss ancestry. He and his older sister Allyson grew up in Greenwich Village.

As a child, Downey was "surrounded by drugs." His father, a drug addict, allowed Downey to use marijuana at age six, an incident which his father later said he regretted. Downey later stated that drug use became an emotional bond between him and his father: "When my dad and I would do drugs together, it was like him trying to express his love for me in the only way he knew how." Eventually, Downey began spending every night abusing alcohol and "making a thousand phone calls in pursuit of drugs".

During his childhood, Downey had minor roles in his father's films. He made his acting debut at the age of five, playing a sick puppy in the absurdist comedy Pound (1970), and then at seven appeared in the surrealist Western Greaser's Palace (1972). At the age of 10, he was living in England and studied classical ballet as part of a larger curriculum. He attended the Stagedoor Manor Performing Arts Training Center in upstate New York as a teenager. When his parents divorced in 1978, Downey moved to California with his father, but in 1982, he dropped out of Santa Monica High School, and moved back to New York to pursue an acting career full-time.

Downey and Kiefer Sutherland, who shared the screen in the 1988 drama 1969, were roommates for three years when he first moved to Hollywood to pursue his career in acting

On July 15, 2021, it was announced that Downey would co-star in the television adaptation of novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen's novel, The Sympathizer. It was also announced he would star in the film Play Dirty, reuniting with Shane Black, the director of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Iron Man 3.Downey will reprise his role as Holmes in a third film, initially scheduled for release on December 22, 2021, but later put on hold indefinitely according to director Dexter Fletcher. In March 2023, Downey was announced to be in talks to star in a remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo from a screenplay by Steven Knight. Also in March 2023, it was announced that Downey would star in a political comedy starring Robert Pattinson titled Average Height, Average Build from Adam McKay

2010 Academy Awards

In 2003, Downey met producer Susan Downey (née Levin), an executive vice-president of production at Joel Silver's film company, Silver Pictures, on the set of Gothika. Though Susan twice turned down his romantic advances, she and Downey did quietly strike up a romance during production. Despite Susan's worries that the romance would not last after the completion of shooting given that "he's an actor; I have a real job", the couple's relationship continued after production wrapped on Gothika, and Downey proposed to Susan on the night before her thirtieth birthday. In August 2005, the couple were married, in a Jewish ceremony, at Amagansett, New York. A tattoo on one of his biceps reads "Suzie Q" in tribute to her. The Downeys' first child, a son, was born in February 2012, and their second, a daughter, was born in November 2014.

Downey has been a close friend of Mel Gibson since they starred in Air America. Downey defended Gibson during the controversy surrounding The Passion of the Christ, and said "nobody's perfect" in reference to Gibson's 2006 DUI. Gibson said of Downey: "He was one of the first people to call and offer the hand of friendship. He just said, 'Hey, welcome to the club. Let's go see what we can do to work on ourselves.'" In October 2011, Downey was being honored at the 25th American Cinematheque Awards; Downey chose Gibson to present him with his award for his life's work and used his air time to say a few kind words about Gibson and explain why he chose him to present the award.

Sobriety

Downey says he has been drug-free since July 2003 and credited his wife with helping him overcome his drug and alcohol habits, along with his family, therapy, meditation, twelve-step recovery programs, yoga, and the practice of Wing Chun kung fu,[25] the martial art he learned from Eric Oram, who is also a fight consultant in several of Downey's movies. Oram was Downey's personal fight coordinator in Avengers: Age of Ultron and Captain America: Civil War. In December 2015, Downey received a full and unconditional pardon from Governor of California Jerry Brown for his prior drug convictions. Oram wrote a letter in support of Downey's pardon to Governor Brown. When asked on The Oprah Winfrey Show how he was able to make his sobriety stick this time, Downey said: "It's really not that difficult to overcome these seemingly ghastly problems. What's hard is to decide to do it."

In a 2008 interview, Downey stated that his time in prison changed his political point of view somewhat, saying: "I have a really interesting political point of view, and it's not always something I say too loud at dinner tables here, but you can't go from a $2,000-a-night suite at La Mirage to a penitentiary and really understand it and come out a liberal. You can't. I wouldn't wish that experience on anyone else, but it was very, very, very educational for me and has informed my proclivities and politics ever since." However, when asked about the quote in a 2015 interview to promote Avengers: Age of Ultron, he denied that his previous statement reflected any longstanding beliefs on his part, and stated: "I wouldn't say that I'm a Republican or a liberal or a Democrat."

Downey serves on the board of the Anti-Recidivism Coalition.

In January 2020, during the promotions of his film Dolittle, Downey announced that he had made the decision to adopt a vegan diet, in response to the debate about the climate crisis, stating that "I'm a one-man carbon footprint nightmare colossus" and believes he can do his part to contribute. Downey previously announced his opening of The Footprint Coalition, an organization he launched to reduce carbon footprints around the world using advanced technology. The Footprint Coalition promotes technologies that protect the environment such as French insect-farming startup Ynsect,[ the bio-based alternative to plastic manufacturer RWDC,[ and bamboo toilet paper manufacturer Cloud Paper