Robert Downey Jr. is on the rebound.
With the blockbuster success of Iron Man in 2008, Robert Downey Jr. all of a sudden found himself back in the spotlight. This was after a downward spiral of arrests ranging from 1996 to 2001. The arrests were numerous, mostly for possession of elicit drugs and firearms. Downey was in and out of rehab, a product of the celebrity culture he had been raised in.
Iron Man got the ball rolling for Downey after he appeared in minor roles in films like Gothika and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang while also guest starring on shows like Family Guy. Tony Stark, a morally torn celebrity industrialist who suffers from his own history of substance abuse, was the perfect role for Robert Downey Jr. It was no wonder the film was such a box office success, earning $300 million in North America alone. Superheroes are good guys we want to root for, and we want to root for Downey as he comes back from the darkness of addiction.
Iron Man 2 is just wrapped filming and the film franchise is becoming the vessel of another comeback kid, Mickey Rourke, who returned to the world of film with the heartbreaking independent film The Wrestler. Playing the villain Whiplash, Rourke will be facing off against Downey in a battle of the comebacks.
Downey’s success continued later in 2008 with the hit comedy Tropic Thunder. In the film, Downey Jr. hilariously played Lincoln Osiris, a white actor who was surgically altered in order to play a black character. Downey was fully forthcoming about the absurdity of the character in interviews. In an interview for the website News Blaze in August 2008, Downey said, “I loved playing a black man.”
Downey, who for most of his career was anything but a blockbuster movie star, is slated to star in another action film as Sherlock Holmes. From the trailers that have been released so far, it looks as if Downey’s Holmes is an eccentric, wisecracking, dashing detective. In other words, it’s a role that usually would be given to Johnny Depp. As strange as it is, however, Downey is a hotter property than Johnny Depp right now. Success has really struck Downey, and he deserves every bit of it.
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