Institute for Robert Downey Jr Studies > Research

Robert Downey Jr Quotes

His strategy for long-term success
I feel as though I was coughed out of the whale’s mouth into this life. If I had a strategy, I’d dare anybody not to laugh or puke at the strategy I came up with.

How he views his past
I have a very strong sense of that messed-up kid, that devoted theater actor, that ne’er-do-well twentysomething nihilistic androgyne and that late-20s married guy with a little kid, lost, lost in narcotics—all as aspects of things I don’t regret and am happy to keep a door open on. More than anything I have this sense that I’m a veteran of a war that is difficult to discuss with people who haven’t been there.

Explaining his ‘troubled actor’ years
I didn’t really have a childhood. So I just kind of fit it in between 28 and 37. Then it just got bigger and bigger. There were just other varieties of self-medication being the answer to everyday problems, situations, and realities.

On lasting sobriety
Discipline for me is about respect. It’s not even about self-respect; it’s about respect for life and all it offers. And not indulging. I have happily reconsidered my position on a bunch of things I didn’t want on my “no” list despite all evidence that I couldn’t handle them. At the end of the day, anything I think I’m sacrificing I’m just giving up because it makes me feel better.

His biggest sacrifice for fame
Losing touch with the day-to-day reality of a modest existence. Los Angeles isn’t reality, and making a movie in Los Angeles is a double-entendre of non-reality.

On being an actor
I would say that among my many huge emotional miscalculations was my taking a film career for granted. It is the most awesome privelege to be able to use one’s imagination and wit, physicality and musicality, conscious brain and unconscious instinct in the service of a work that has a chance to move and excite and amuse and delight people all over the world, including long after we’re dead. What a noble calling! And I felt it was just there for me as a kind of given, some sort of inherited birthright—when in reality it’s the most magnificent luxury.

The secret of his talent
I know very little about acting. I’m just an incredibly gifted faker.

How much he values film critics
They’re only people who I don’t even know who the fuck they are anyways. It would be kinda like if you got a random phone call saying you’re the awesomest ever. What does that mean? I don’t know who it is. You get a random phone call saying you’re two-dimensional and lame. How does that feel? I don’t know, kinda like the first one.

His initial goals
I wanted to make a million dollars. I wanted my name above the titles and I wanted everyone to know who I was and all my friends to say, “Wow, I wish I were him.” It probably wouldn’t have made my any happier but at least it would have given me the guise of success.

On getting rich later in life
There’s a lot of experience-is-everything, a bit of a gypsy-grifter thing in my DNA for some reason. Let’s say Chaplin had come out and I’d busted all the right moves, gotten on Antabuse or something, and done the stuff I’m doing now back then. I guarantee you I’d have a hangar filled with vintage this and that and maybe even a bronze of myself—flagrant artifacts of success, a real squander-fest. Now a splurge to me is getting a bunch of t-shirts or sneakers.

Projecting an image through product ownership
The funny thing is, Susan’s and my lifestyle — as much as it’s about home and creating something warm — it’s still an image thing no matter how you slice it, the same way it’s as much of an ego trip to drive the Jetta as it is the Bentley. One’s a judgment on the other, and one’s a counterjudgment.

Big vs small movies
I love being part of something that makes other people a bunch of dough. And I don’t need to make nothing but big movies. In fact, if anything I’m probably in danger of wearing out my welcome.

His future plans as a musician
For me, the shit has come to this, and here’s one of the great things about getting older: I’m confident enough in myself as a singer to never go out of my way to do it again.

On doing a nude scene
What it would come down to is me saying, “I hope I don’t get a hard-on.” It would be distracting to the crew and I’d be embarrassed because, shit, maybe it’s not as big as I want it to be. You can expose yourself in a lot more ways than taking your clothes off.

What it’s like growing up the son of an avant-garde filmmaker
It’s as if your family is in the construction business. Except try and imagine it being like an avant-garde construction business. You can’t say, “My dad’s a builder, maybe you’ve heard of him,” because nobody’s heard of him, except he’s done some weird, bizarre building somewhere.

On moving to Los Angeles as a teenager
You come out here, and all of a sudden some hot dark-haired chick named Amber is driving a green Fiat 128-4—driving stick. Dude, seeing a seventeen-year-old girl driving stick shift, and she’s driving you down Sunset Boulevard to go make out by the water? I’m like, I’m never going back anywhere. Why the fuck would I go back to New York? This is fucking gypsy heaven, dude—there’s a million suckers out here.

On speculation that he’s bipolar
Although I can say sometimes I wanna shop a lot and sometimes I just wanna watch ESPN and jerk off and eat ice cream, I’m not fucking depressed or manic. I’ve been told I was an axis 2.94 disorder, but the guy I was seeing didn’t know I was smoking crack in his bathroom. You can’t make a diagnosis until somebody’s fucking sober.

On Wall Street
If money is evil, then that building is hell. This is the most obnoxious group of money-hungry, low-IQ, high-energy, jack rabbit fucking, wannabe-big-time, small-time, shit-talkin’, bothersome, irritating bunch of motherfuckers I’ve ever had to endure for more than 5 mintues.

His view of politics
I think that it’s such an inside game that there’s nothing to do, nothing to say, and it’s a huge ego trip to take a position on this stuff. It’s a full-time job. It’s kind of like the law—obscene from every angle and full of the darkest matter that people can engage themselves with.

On gun control
I don’t think I’m allowed to have a gun anymore. They took it. I think I deserve to have it back when my probation is over. It’s not like I did anything with the gun except pretend that I was skilled in its use.

On self-disclosure with the press
It’s so crazy that nowadays people have to consider closeting themselves, because I’m not leading a double life—because I don’t have a quote-unquote documented past — because I’m not using some foot soldier to keep me clamped down from any sort of exposés — I have no reservations about putting to word my thoughts, projections, beliefs. I don’t have those fears.

On fashion
I used to be into clothes, but I’ve lost the desire to spend an extra six minutes deciding what belt would look great with what shoes. I’m like, “Wait a minute. Will these pants be comfortable after I eat?”

Contemplating pet ownership
I’m thinking of buying a monkey. Then I think, “Why stop at one?” I don’t like being limited in that way. Therefore, I’m considering a platoon of monkeys. So that people will look at me and see how mellow and well-adjusted I am compared to these monkeys throwing their feces around.