Both the father and the son acknowledge that the latter developed those same habits from the age of eight. A detail that can be terrifying, but that both address without truculence. “We would alter our consciousness with substances,” recalls Robert Downey Jr. “I was just playing a game of wanting to appease myself, or staying high, before accepting the fact that things had gotten out of hand.”
“Honestly, and more than anything else, I remember it and think ‘it’s impressive that a finished film could come out of that,'” he recalls. “But that didn’t stop the Downeys.”
Downey Sr., however, managed to disengage following his marriage to laura ernst in 1991. Although she died three years later, a victim of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the Iron Man actor says it was the first step toward his own recovery. “Although it took me another 20 years to become a person again, you and Laura became a point of stability”he acknowledges, turning to his dad.
Watching his father cope with his widowhood without relapse into addiction, Downey Jr. adds, provided him with an example to follow. “When you lost it, and you stayed clean, and I was still out there, you told me that I had to stay on this planet and not give up,” he says. “You weren’t exactly a man without karma. We’re not going to play with the truth here. But that was a super important thing.”
As one more step in this game of mirrors, the rise in the career of Robert Downey Jr. came after his marriage to the producer Laura Levin in 2005. He is now one of the most beloved actors in the world, and Mr. It remains as a record that adjusts accounts with its past.
Robert Downey Sr. is available on Netflix.
Source: Ambito
I am an author and journalist who has worked in the entertainment industry for over a decade. I currently work as a news editor at a major news website, and my focus is on covering the latest trends in entertainment. I also write occasional pieces for other outlets, and have authored two books about the entertainment industry.
