Round birthday: Superheld with weaknesses – Robert Downey Jr.

Robert Downey Jr. was in the spotlight in early March at the Oscar ceremony. As one of the prominent gala “Presenter”, he handed the trophy to Kieran Culkin (“A Real Pain”) as a freshly chosen best support actor. A year earlier, Downey Jr. held his first Oscar dank speech on this stage.

With his brilliant supporting role in “Oppenheimer”, the actor had prevailed against competitors such as Ryan Gosling (“Barbie”) and Robert de Niro (“Killers of the Flower Moon”). In the drama of Christopher Nolan, he played the intrigue politician and entrepreneur of Lewis Strauss, a opponent of the main character of the physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy).

Career with highs and lows

For Downey Jr., who celebrates his 60th birthday on April 4, the Oscar coronation was a hard-earned success in his moving Hollywood career, which did not seem possible for a long time. Under raging applause and standing ovation, the actor paid tribute to a whole series of events and people, such as his “terrible childhood”, his lawyer, who got him out of many predicament and above all his second wife, Susan Downey.

She brought him back into life, “a growling street dog” with her love, said the “Iron Man” star. Then he dedicated the Oscar trophy to his three children Avri, Exton and Indio.

The son of the director Robert Downey Sr. (1936 – 2021), who was born in New York, who became known in the 1960s by underground films, came into contact with fame and drugs early. His father gave him the first roles. In 1993 Downey Jr. turned into cinema legend Charlie Chaplin. His apt presentation brought him the first Oscar nomination as the best leading actor. Slide we continued with films like “Natural Born Killers”, “only for you” and “residualization – time of sensuality”.

But the fame didn’t last long. His career collapsed again and again because of drug escapades. Arrests, detention and withdrawal changed. The first time he was behind bars for 15 months after the police found cocaine and a revolver in his car in 1996. He sat in the second time because he had violated probation requirements. In 2001, relapses led to the outline of the lawyer series “Ally McBeal”.

After that, Downey Jr. finally got rid of drug use. In 2003 he was seen again on the cinema screen in the psychological thriller “Gothika”. At that time, the marriage diverge with his first wife, the actress and singer Deborah Falconer. During the filming of “Gothika”, he met the film producer Susan Levin.

Second marriage with two children

The couple told him to complete drug abstinence and only married after two years of engagement time in an interview with the magazine “Hollywood Reporter”. In August 2005, they said yes in the Hamptons near New York. In 2012 son Exton was born, in 2014 daughter Avri. From his first marriage, Downey Jr. has the now 31-year-old son Indio.

“Team Downey” is the name of her production company founded in 2010. Her first project was the father-son story “The Richter-Law or Honor” (2014), with Downey Jr. as a successful lawyer and Robert Duvall as his alienated father. Duvall brought the role of an Oscar nomination.

Hollywood’s top earner

After films such as “Good Night, and Good Luck” (2005) and “Zodiac” (2007), the actor rose through “Iron Man” (2008) and “Sherlock Holmes” (2009) into the ranks of Hollywood’s top earners. The US economy magazine “Forbes” classified him for the third time in a row in 2015 as the best paid actor in the world.

No wonder: since the first superhero film “Iron Man” (2008), Downey Jr. has been in front of the camera as the eccentric genius Tony Stark Iron Man, most recently in the cinema hit “Avengers: Endgame” (2019). In it, however, the superhero died, the fans had to say goodbye to the iconic figure. What made him so lovable: For the role of the purified arms dealer in the protective armored cover, Downey brings a large portion of self -irony in addition to flawing and masculinity.

He owes a lot to the “iconic superhero” Tony Stark, said Downey Jr. in March at the SXSW film & TV festival in Austin in the US state of Texas. The inventor’s figure opened his eyes that power technology has to change the world for the good, said the actor.

Return as a villain Doctor Doom

After the farewell to Tony Stark, the star wants to return to the Marvel universe – now as a villain. Last summer, Downey Jr. announced that he would play in two films, “Avengers: Doomsday” and “Avengers: Secret Wars”, both directed by the brothers Joe and Anthony Russo, the Marvel villain Victor by Doom alias Doctor Doom. He is an arch enemy of the superhero quartet Fantastic Four. He hides his disfigured face behind a mask, and he wears a green hooded cloak.

His fans have to be patient for a while. It is not until May 2026 that the Marvel film “Avengers: Doomsday” will come to the cinemas, followed by “Avengers: Secret Wars” the following year.