♪♪
-Damn.
-Good luck, keeping up.
-Robert Downey Jr.'s
helps Kickstart Marvel's
$3 billion cinematic universe.
♪♪
-He's one of those actors
that there's an extra sprinkling
of something special.
-But in the '90s,
the actor has more in common
with the superheroes rich
out of control alter ego.
-Robert's grown up
in the public eye,
and Tony Stark, he's a guy who's
also grown up in the public eye.
♪♪
-You've got all these gifts,
but you're taking heroin.
-Downey's addictions
to drugs and alcohol
nearly cost him everything...
-As far as Hollywood
is concerned, he's toast.
-...Even his life.
-It's like I have a shotgun
in my mouth,
and I've got my finger
on the trigger,
and I like the taste
of the g*n metal.
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
-I had a really serious
sick love affair with cocaine.
And like a friend of mine
who put it behind him said,
he calls cocaine "The Lady."
-In July of 2000,
"NBC News" ventures
inside the California
State Prison Center
where Charles Manson
is locked up,
to interview
an equally famous prisoner,
Robert Downey Jr.
-And he said the only way
you can respect The Lady
is to stop seeing her
altogether.
-Downey, inmate number P50522,
is 12 months into his
three-year sentence
for a litany of drug offenses,
including the possession
of heroin and cocaine.
-And that was
always difficult to me,
'cause, you know,
breaking up is hard to do.
-And not even prison will
split up Downey and The Lady.
But when he and drugs
finally do call it quits,
he will embark on one
of Hollywood's
most blockbuster comebacks,
finally achieving
the professional acclaim
that seemed his birthright.
-And the Oscar goes to
Robert Downey Jr.!
[ Cheers and applause ]
-Born in Manhattan
in April of 1965,
Downey Jr.'s mother
Elsie is an actress.
And his father,
Robert Downey Sr.,
an avant-garde
independent filmmaker.
It's in one of his father's
experimental films,
the 5-year-old Jr.
gets his first acting role.
-His first on screen performance
was in a film called "Pound."
It kind of sums up, I think,
his dad's slightly
experimental background in
that it was a dog pound,
but everyone was human.
So everyone was playing
different dogs.
-Next morning, we go upstairs.
There's no more furniture,
the roof's gone.
-His dad kind of put him
in this film as a puppy.
-That tornado scared me so much,
it made my hair disappear.
-His first line was, "Have
you got any hair on your ba*ls?"
-Have any hair on your ba*ls?
[ Laughter ]
-I don't know if you're
allowed to say that on -- on --
[ Laughing ] On Vice.
My name is Ben Falk, I'm an
entertainment journalist
and film writer,
and I'm also the author
of "Robert Danny Jr: The Fall
and Rise of the Comeback Kid."
[ Funky music plays ]
-With this mom and dad,
a part of New York's artsy
Downey Jr. is there
to witness at all.
-He was just absorbing
all this stuff in.
Um, and when I say absorbing
all that stuff in,
I mean, like, literally sucking
in the pot smoke
because drugs were being done
at home.
♪♪
-Downey Jr. says
he was just a little kid
when his father first offers
him a chance to smoke marijuana.
-His dad famously gave him
his first joint.
His dad was like,
"Yeah, take this. Who cares?
It's from the garden,
it's fine."
The sort of story changes,
like, sometimes it's six,
sometimes it's eight,
sometimes it's seven,
but certainly, um,
around six, seven, eight,
he was already smoking pot.
I'm not a trained psychologist,
but it was kind of inevitable,
I think, actually,
that he'd end up getting
embroiled in that world
because it was normalized, uh,
right from the very beginning.
-An actual trained doctor,
an addiction specialist says
nothing is inevitable.
But being exposed to drugs at
an early age can be problematic.
-To give a child alcohol
or weed...
you can throw the switch
on the predisposed very easily.
My name is Dr. Drew Pinsky.
In the '90s,
I was doing a radio show
called "Love Line,"
but really the vast majority
of my time
was spent running a large
addiction recovery program
in a psychiatric hospital.
If you're exposed young,
your risk of addiction,
if you have the genetic
background, begins to skyrocket.
-Downey Jr.'s
genetic background comes through
his father, a lifelong addict.
Downey Sr.'s drug issues
contribute to a divorce in 1978.
After his dad relocates
to Los Angeles,
Downey Jr. follows him
out to Hollywood.
-Robert Downey Jr. went to
Santa Monica High School.
I'm Michael Fleeman
and in the 1990s,
I was an entertainment reporter.
It's a public school,
Santa Monica,
west side of Los Angeles
that had so many
famous young actors
who would go on to become huge.
-Some of Downey's classmates
include Rob Lowe,
Charlie Sheen, and Sean Penn.
-Santa Monica High had
a lot of drug kind of culture
there was definitely
coke kicking about.
-At 17, Downey drops out
of high school to pursue acting.
Within a year,
he lands his first big role
playing a nasty kid named Lee
in the movie "Firstborn."
Also in the movie is future star
of "Sex and the City,"
Sarah Jessica Parker.
Downey and Parker,
are seen dating.
-She was this cool,
very focused actress,
and he was pretty much
the opposite.
The relationship happened
really quickly.
It kind of spiraled really,
really fast into, like,
being a quite serious
relationship.
-While dating Parker,
Downey lands another
mean kid role
in "Weird Science."
-Rumor has it, there's
a big white sale going on.
-At Towel World!
-Towel World.
[ Both laugh ]
-The movie's directed
by John Hughes,
the man responsible
for Brat Pack movies
like "The Breakfast Club"
and "Pretty and Pink."
-Even though he was
in a John Hughes film,
Downey, I don't think you could
ever call him
part of the Brat Pack.
He wasn't kind of one
of the main
body of that group.
-After "Weird Science,"
Downey gets hired
by "Saturday Night Live" creator
Lorne Michaels,
who, after quitting
the show in 1980,
returns to run "SNL"
five years later.
-Lorne Michaels was trying to
resurrect "Saturday Night Live."
And his idea was, let's bring
in a load of young people
because we need to bring
in some fresh new blood.
-The one aspect
of working on "SNL"
lives on from the heyday
of Belushi and Chase.
-Just the sheer kind of grind
of what
"Saturday Night Live" is,
it being crazy
and drugs kicking around.
Um, we're still there.
-Downey fully embraces
that legacy.
And is out most nights
enjoying New York's
drug-fueled club scene.
-Everybody knew he was part
of a fast living crowd.
Everybody knew he was
in the party scene.
But there was never a sense that
it had gotten out of control.
He didn't miss work.
-Despite his work ethic,
the 11th season
of "Saturday Night Live"
is considered one of the weakest
in the show's 50 year history.
And Downey, like many others,
is not invited back
for another season.
-You'll-- Ow!
[ Laughter ]
Hey.
-It will take two years
before Downey
lands what many consider
his breakout role.
-Check me out. I'm gonna make
a serious comeback.
-Great.
"Less Than Zero."
-A big role
for Robert Downey Jr.
was playing this character,
Julian,
who is a drug addict who,
by the end of the film,
goes through an awful lot
of horrible stuff
in pursuit of drugs
and because of drugs.
I genuinely think it's one
of the best films that he made.
-Not here!
We talked about this.
"Less Than Zero" shows
his best qualities.
It shows a scene stealing actor
who every time he's on screen,
your eyes are magnetically drawn
to him.
-Always a pleasure.
-And particularly in when he's
going through that
kind of pain,
you really feel that pain
right down to your marrow.
-Looking back,
it's easy to question
whether Downey's performance
as Julian
is a case of life imitating art.
Or the other way around.
-He would sort of say that
he wasn't experientially
performing that role.
But I think a lot of people
who watched that film
would say otherwise.
-All you have to do is relax.
I'm gonna pay you back.
All you need to do is trust me.
-I don't want to trust you,
Julian.
I just want my $50K,
all right?
-He certainly channeled
a lot of his life
and his demons into that role.
Julian in "Less Than Zero,"
is What Robert Downey Jr.
was about to become.
-[Bleep] up.
-In the late '80s,
Robert Downey Jr.'s
compelling performance
as a desperate drug addict
in "Less Than Zero"
makes him one of Hollywood's
most talked about young actors.
But there's one person who knows
the line between Downey
acting like a drug addict
and being one
is more than just blurred.
Downey's manager,
Loree Rodkin
forces him
to take his first trip to rehab.
But Rodkin learns
no good deed goes unpunished.
Downey pushes her out while
clinging to his drug habit.
-Your survival system
is taken over
by the pursuit of a chemical.
It's extremely powerful,
and it distorts everything else,
thinking, emotions,
interpersonal conduct.
It -- It distorts all that
and serves the one god
of pursuing the substance.
-But at this point,
Downey substance abuse
has yet to interfere with his
on screen performances.
-Anything anywhere, anytime.
That's our motto.
Well, it would be.
-If we actually existed.
-That's right.
-Downey opens the '90s
by being cast
in the action comedy
"Air America,"
alongside another actor
with a history of addiction,
Mel Gibson.
♪♪
Like Downey,
Gibson starts drinking young,
and by the time of
"Air America,"
Gibson already has a DUI
in Canada.
♪♪
-Mel Gibson had some issues,
um, in terms of
substance addiction
and stuff like that.
And so, I think, actually,
there's a slight kind of
older brother,
younger brother
relationship there.
I think Robert Downey Jr. sees
a lot of himself in Mel Gibson.
-During sh**ting,
Downey and Gibson
grow into real world friends,
not drinking buddies.
-When he shot initially
with Mel
back for "Air America,"
he was clean.
-Why are they sh**ting at us?
-'Cause they're unfriendly.
-Why is everyone so unfriendly?
-Well, they haven't
got to know us yet.
-You know, he was actually
on one of his kind of dry runs.
-But that ends
after "Air America" wraps.
Downey is soon
back out to late nights
of drug-induced partying,
which now includes
not just snorting,
but also smoking cocaine.
-He was someone
who was able to kind of
have this
incredible constitution
and just being out at,
like, the China Club one night,
being out at the Roxbury
another night,
being out the Hollywood Canteen
the next night,
and then still managing
to work the next day,
which is remarkable, actually.
There were very --
There seemed to be
very few people
that can do that,
maybe him and Keith Richards.
-But Downey's drugs
and Rock and roll lifestyle
is taking its toll
on his relationship
with Sarah Jessica Parker.
-I think what was strange
as well about this relationship
between, uh, Downey
and Parker
was that she was the
most straitlaced person
you could ever imagine.
The idea of drugs
for Sarah Jessica Parker
was just completely anathema.
Like, that wasn't
part of her life.
-Parker's career
is going strong.
Having demonstrated
her comedic skills
playing opposite Steve Martin
in the romantic comedy
"L.A. Story."
But her real life romance
with the hard partying Downey
is fast becoming the kind of
L.A. story that ends badly
for the sober side
of the couple.
-She deeply, deeply loved him,
you know, they were going to --
you could sense they were going
to get married at some point,
um, until the drugs
kind of broke it apart.
I think that's
where partners of his
have thought -- they've thought
that they can fix him.
They've thought
that this is someone that can,
you know, he's ready to change.
-You can't save an addict.
You can't.
And when you're with somebody,
you -- everybody
wants them to get better,
wants to do something
to help them.
It's very, very painful.
The family, the loved ones
suffer more than the patient,
because the patient's loaded.
-In 1991,
after seven years together,
Parker breaks it off
with Downey.
-She tried and she tried
and she tried,
and there was lying,
and there was apologies
and all this kind of stuff,
and eventually,
just living with someone
with that disease
is just proved too much for her.
-Less than a year
after the breakup,
Downey starts dating someone
who can keep up
with his appetite for alcohol
and hard drugs.
Singer actress Deborah Falconer.
-Deborah had some
of her own issues,
and they were enjoying
the night life
and the kind of partying aspect
of Hollywood, too.
They met,
they fell in love very,
very quickly,
and within just, like,
just after a month,
actually, um, they were married.
-At the same time,
Downey is just wrapping up
filming the role
that will define him
as an actor for decades.
-You can't be Chaplain.
-Downey's total embodiment
of Charlie Chaplin
mesmerizes audiences, along with
fellow actors and directors.
-I loved him in "Chaplin."
-He's so there and present
and in the moment,
If you play tennis
with a good player,
you're going to play better.
-Some actors pick up a script,
they read they read the lines
that they're supposed to say.
And nine times out of ten,
they'll do similar things
with the words,
with the lines,
with the intention.
When Robert Downey Jr.
gave you a line reading,
it was, like,
more different than anybody
ever would have approached it,
you know?
-Both Michael Schultz
and Gail O'Grady will not work
with Downey until years later
on the TV series, "Ally McBeal."
But like the rest of Hollywood
in 1992,
they're witnessing the rise
of a major talent
when the industry recognizes
at the 65th Academy Awards.
-Best Actor nominee
for his brilliant work in
"Chaplain,"
Robert Downey Jr.
-Although he loses to Al Pacino
for his role in
"Scent of a Woman"...
-I'm just getting warmed up.
-...Downey is also
just getting warmed up.
Over the next year,
he wins Britain's version
of the Academy Award.
His first son, Indio was born,
and Downey delivers
scene-stealing moments
in some of the decades
most artistic films,
including Robert Altman's
"Short Cuts,"
and Oliver Stone's,
"Natural Born K*llers."
-Wait, wait, wait.
Time, cut, cut, cut.
Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut.
That's a [bleep] joke, right?
-But these visible successes
mask something hidden away
inside Downey
that leads him to begin using
an even more addicting drug.
-Robert had been, you know,
he'd been doing drugs
for a long time by 1995.
Coke, weed,
drinking everything.
But actually,
when he did heroin
for the first time.
-The type of heroin Downey
is using is black tar,
a crude variant popular
in the '90s,
that's also known
as Black Dragon.
-Black tar heroin
was readily available,
sort of good source of heroin,
cheap, uh, and that's what
was being shot.
-Downey will later admit
that smoking heroin is
why his performances
are so subdued in the films
that he made at the time.
Something that did
not go unnoticed by his peers.
-He was doing "Home
for the Holidays" at the time.
So he was making this movie
which Jody Foster was directing.
And Jodie Foster remembers
writing this letter to him,
just saying, "Don't do this,"
basically.
Like, "You've got all these
gifts. You've got this ability.
You could do anything
you want in this town.
But you're taking heroin,
you're ruining it.
You're giving yourself
an opportunity
to destroy everything
that you've built."
He didn't listen to her,
he was in the throes of
heavy addiction by that point.
So he wasn't ready
to listen to anybody.
♪♪
-The first time
I knew about serious trouble
involving Robert Downey Jr.
was when my editor said
that Downey had been arrested.
-Downey gets pulled over
for driving 70 miles per hour
on the winding Pacific Coast
Highway, just outside of Malibu.
-He's pulled over
for speeding,
for suspected driving
under the influence.
Cop finds cocaine,
finds heroin,
and finds a 357 magnum.
-What starts
with a cop pulling him over
will lead to a judge
throwing in the book
and will deliver
Robert Downey Jr.
to the brink
of self destruction.
-Things are going from bad
to worse.
-By 1996, Robert Downey Jr.
is no longer
a Hollywood bad boy.
He's now being cast as a man
whose life is dangerously
out of control.
-At this point, uh,
he is possibly a danger
to himself and to the community,
if and when he drives
under the influence.
-Suddenly, he's light in the
full view of the world's press
as someone who was caught
with all these drugs
under the influence
and with a g*n.
-The DUI drug and g*n
possession charges,
put a somber
and contrite looking Downey
in front of a judge.
-After that first
court appearance,
Robert Downey Jr.
doesn't go off to jail.
He doesn't go off to prison.
He's essentially out on bail.
So another court hearing is set.
And he is let go.
-It leaves him free
to continue smoking heroin
and freebasing cocaine
on a near daily basis.
-When Robert Downey Jr.
is left to his own devices,
he finds trouble.
And in this case, God bless him,
it was the weirdest
kind of trouble you can imagine.
-Just a month after
the first court appearance,
police receive a 911 call
from Downey's neighbor
in Malibu.
-[ Snoring ]
-His neighbor
goes into the child's bedroom,
and who is asleep
in the kids room,
but Robert Downey Jr.
-They were just putting one
of the kids to bed,
and they found a lump
in the bed.
And it was Downey Jr. who
had walked into the wrong house
and had climbed into
this child's bed.
-Snoozing away.
-Media quickly labeled
this latest chapter
in the Downey saga
the "Goldilocks Incident."
-You know,
who's sleeping in my bed?
-The neighbor calls 911
and says, you know,
"You're not going to believe
this, but Robert Downey Jr.
is asleep in my kid's bed.
-Even in Hollywood,
this is strange.
And you listen to the 911 call,
you can literally hear
Robert Downey Jr. snoring
in the background.
-He said the cab took him
to the wrong house.
I don't think that's true,
really.
I think it was just too much
drinking, too much drugs,
and "I want to go home,
I don't want to go to bed."
-So, of course,
everyone's joking about it.
"Oh, Robert Downey Jr. broke
into somebody's house,
fell asleep in the bed, ha ha."
-Luckily, Downey's
neighbors don't press charges,
but the incident
still makes headlines.
And even worse, it violates
the probation of his first DUI.
-After the Goldilocks Incident,
it -- it became this kind of
nonstop trail of ---
of one court date after another.
He's missing court-mandated
drug tests,
uh,
he's continually screwing up.
-Months later in 1996,
the court orders Downey
to attend a treatment center
in Marina Del Rey.
But it lacks the one thing
Downey craves.
More drugs.
The moment
he gets into this rehab,
he's already looking at ways
that he can get away.
So, you know,
he figures out a way
a window to climb out of.
-He's wearing his hospital pants
and a Hawaiian shirt
and slippers,
and he sneaks out
into the night.
-He kind of stumbles his
way into a surf shop nearby.
The people recognize him
in the surf shop
and call him a cab,
and he's away.
-It just again, you want to
kind of laugh about it.
It's a comic scene,
perhaps, but at the same time,
it's like, my God,
you know,
is this how badly
you want those drugs
that you just can't
even spend two days in rehab?
-Downey tries to play
his addictions for laughs
when he returns
to "Saturday Night Live"
as a guest host that November.
-I did have a really
interesting summer, though.
Here's me picking up a little
prescription from my pharmacist.
Uh, this next one is of me
when I stayed at this
terrific guest house in Malibu.
It was actually two doors down
from my own house, but you know.
-But if laughter is
the great healer,
it doesn't work on Downey,
who shows no intention
of sobering up.
-He wasn't ready
to go through that,
even though people were
starting to say, "Look, man,
like, things are going off
the rails big time here.
Like you're struggling.
Something needs to change."
He -- He just wasn't ready
to accept it.
-One person who is ready
for a change is Downey's wife,
Deborah Falconer.
She serves him
with separation papers.
-I think there was
a lot of relationship issues
and personal issues that
were starting to press on him.
-After another DUI and drug
possession charge,
along with his
multiple probation violations,
the Malibu judge Lawrence Mira
tries to scare Downey straight.
-The judge says, "Look,
I-I just have no choice here.
You know,
I'm running out of patience,
I'm running out of options.
And the judge
throws Downey in jail.
In jail for 113 days.
-Downey gets sent to the
L.A. County Central Men's jail,
home to violent offenders
and rat-infested cells.
Unlike the other prisoners,
however,
the judge lets Downey
leave the jail
to act in a movie.
But getting chauffeured
by sheriff deputies
to Paramount Studios
doesn't sit well
with Downey's fellow inmates.
-If they see another inmate
getting special treatment,
this makes it more difficult
for us to control their behavior
in a jail institutional setting.
-It's a lesson
Downey learns the hard way.
-Downey got attacked.
He got his face bashed in,
and it was so serious that,
you know,
he had to have medical attention
and even plastic surgery
to kind of fix his nose.
So yes, it was a very, very
rough stretch in County jail.
-After his release,
Downey looks for work in movies.
Any movies to help finance
his continuing addiction.
-And the problem is is
that he was still
a kind of semi-successful
movie star at the time.
So he was still doing
these films.
-Deputy, get me out
of these cuts right now.
-It's a problem
because Downey's ability
to keep working may be
stopping him from getting clean.
-My experience has been
that returning to work
and not prioritizing
the recovery
is what takes them out.
You can stop the revolving door
of rehab
by spending enough time
in treatment.
And that's what
celebrities need to do.
-By 1999, no matter
how much compassion
anybody has
for Robert Downey Jr.,
It's run out.
-After failing to show
up for his mandatory drug test
and with more parole violations
since leaving County Jail,
Downey is back
in front of Judge Mira.
This time, armed with
a team of celebrity lawyers,
including Robert Shapiro,
best known for successfully
co-defending OJ Simpson.
-Robert Downey Jr.
is led into court.
He's in an orange jump suit.
His hands are shackled.
You would have thought he's been
treated like a serial k*ller.
-In front of a media packed
court room,
Downey pleads his case.
-And that's when he makes
the famous line about the g*n
in his mouth,
his finger on the trigger.
-It's like I have
a shotgun in my mouth,
and I've got my finger
on the trigger,
and I like the taste
of the g*n metal.
-It's his way of explaining
that he's not just addicted
to the drugs,
but he's addicted to the danger.
-But this is no court room
drama,
and Mira isn't an actor
playing a part.
He's a judge who's seen
enough of Downey's performance.
-The judge just threw up
his hands and said,
"Look, Mr. Downey..."
-"I don't think we have
any alternatives here.
We have used them all."
-"I have to send you
to state prison.
And not just to prison,
I go to send you to prison
for three years."
There was a stunned silence.
He didn't seem to understand why
he was sitting there in court
facing prison time,
going off to the same prison
holding Charles Manson.
-I'm living my dreams.
-In July of 2000,
already 12 months
into his three year sentence,
a not especially contrite
Robert Downey Jr.
gives an interview to "NBC news"
from his cell block
in California's
Corcoran State prison.
-Party! Hey, smile.
You're on Corcoran camera.
No, I'm sorry, go ahead.
-Despite his manic energy,
Downey not doing easy time.
-This is not a country club.
It's out in the middle
of nowhere,
it is surrounded
by fences and razor wire,
and there are guards with g*ns.
These are, you know,
tough criminals,
even in the minimum
to moderate security wing,
and just on the other side
of the fence
is the high security part.
That's where Charles Manson is.
That's where serial K*llers are.
-Prison culture is
really, uh, something
that's hard to explain.
But...
It's opened my eyes
to a lot.
-For somebody
who has arguably not hurt
another person except himself,
this is hard time.
-I'm just, uh -- I'm just
waiting to do the next --
next right thing.
I know I'm not doing it my way
when I leave.
-He's in a dorm-like setting.
He gets the top bunk because
nobody wants the top bunk.
He also has to deal with
the fact that he's famous.
-Unlike his stint
in the L.A. County jail,
Downey gets no days off
to sh**t a movie.
-I've taken it upon myself
to, uh, see that,
if anything, I get slightly less
preferential treatment,
'cause sometimes even just
having things even
would seem not fair.
-Downey proves
to be a model prisoner,
and the courts decide
to release him
after he served 15 months
of his sentence.
-He does manage
to get released from Corcoran
a little bit earlier and kind
of adjourns to another rehab.
And this is his kind of
one big shot
it feels like
to change his life completely,
and you would have thought
he would.
-He's stayed clean,
he's gone to his classes.
He's done his counseling,
and he immediately gets a job
on a show called "Ally McBeal."
-I have a child.
[ Cartoons play on TV ]
-What?
-When Robert Downey Jr.
was added to the cast,
he was just recently
out of prison,
but nobody cared about that.
-He's seven years old.
[ TV turns off ]
-Why didn't you tell me
this before?
-Everybody was elated.
They were excited.
My name is Michael Schultz.
I'm a director
who happened to be lucky enough
to work with
Robert Downey Jr.
for a brief moment
in "Ally McBeal."
-Created by David E. Kelley
and starring Calista Flockhart,
"Ally McBeal's"
in it's fourth season
when Downey becomes her
new love interest,
playing a man
with a complicated past
and deep commitment issues.
-Merry Christmas.
-Everybody loved
his creative genius.
And so it was like a spark plug.
-Downey injects life
into the latter part
of this, uh -- this --
the run of this show.
-Gail O'Grady gets cast to play
Downey's ex-wife on the show.
-We did a scene where
we were in an ice cream parlor
and I was putting whipped cream
on the end of his nose
and Calista walks in
and gets jealous
and dumps a whole ice cream
sundae on his head.
-Are you done?
-Mm-hmm.
-Good.
-We did it a few times.
We definitely did it more
than once.
And Robert's a good sport.
♪♪
I'm Gail O'Grady
Once upon a time, I got to play
Robert Downey Jr.'s ex-wife...
Hello.
-Hi.
-...On "Ally McBeal."
Working with Robert,
like, every once in a while,
you come across actors
that transport you
into another place.
-While Downey's performance
helps bolster
the show's ratings,
working so soon
after prison isn't helping
Downey stay sober.
Something Dr. Drew
sees all too often
with celebrity patients.
-They need to not work.
They need to focus
on their recovery.
He went back and did television
and then relapsed immediately
after that.
-And by that Thanksgiving,
three months after
his release from prison,
he gets arrested again
for drug possession
at a resort in Palm Springs.
-The officers were
able to search the room.
Uh, during the search,
they found a small amount
of methamphetamine and cocaine,
uh, which was consistent
with personal use amounts.
-Even though
everyone would think
that coming out of Corcoran
and you'd go, "You know what?
I'm turning over a new leaf,
that's not me anymore."
That pretty much
was him continuing on.
Like, he didn't change
all that much.
-Downey's court date
for the arrest
gets set
for the following spring,
and if convicted,
would be sent back to prison
for four more years.
But professionally, David Kelley
is willing to let
the incident slide
because the drugs have yet
to interfere
with his performance set.
In fact, they sign him
on for eight more episodes.
-David Kelley chose
to keep Robert Downey
because he -- he loved him.
He loved him as an actor,
you know?
And when Robert was on the set
it was all about the work.
He was totally into character.
He was totally focused.
-I know that he showed up
on that set and did his work.
And he was professional.
He's one of those actors that
when you stand across from him,
there's an extra sprinkling
of something special.
-That extra sprinkle earns
Downey a Golden Globe Award
for his performance on the show
in January 2001.
-Hi. Thanks.
I just wanted to, uh, share
this with my fellow parolees,
I mean, nominees.
And just say
that this really means a lot.
[ Applause ]
-The award is bittersweet.
Just two days later,
Downey receives divorce papers
from Deborah Falconer,
who's demanding
that the actor be allowed
only supervised visits
with their son.
And Downey's relapses become
more frequent and more obvious.
-I'd come to work
and Robert is supposed to be,
uh, in my first scene.
Then my AD comes and says,
"We can't find Robert.
We sent somebody over
to his house.
He's not in his house.
He's M.I.A."
-Just a few months
after the Golden Globes
in April of 2001,
Robert Downey Jr.
is arrested again.
He's wandering the streets
of Culver City,
barefooted on drugs.
♪♪
And, professionally,
that's it. Okay?
The people at "Ally McBeal"
gave him another chance,
he won them a Golden Globe,
he helped their ratings,
but he's got a few episodes
left to sh**t, and that's it.
They just -- They just can't.
-Downey's character is supposed
to marry "Ally McBeal"
in the season finale.
-Instead, David Kelley
has no choice but to fire him.
-Because of his relapse,
they had to figure a way
to write him out of the series,
and it ended pretty abruptly.
-He dropped off a note.
-I think David
was really saddened
and Calista was brokenhearted,
you know,
that, um,
he was not going to be
able to complete the show.
-Robert Downey Jr. does
avoid more prison time
as long as he goes back
into rehab,
but in April of 2001,
despite his immense talent,
it is financially impossible
to hire him.
As far as Hollywood
is concerned, he's toast.
-In July of 2001,
California's proposition 36
diverts non-violent
drug offenders
into rehab instead of prison.
It essentially decriminalizes
drug possession
when it's for personal use.
The change in law saves Downey
from another stint behind bars.
But when it comes to acting,
there's not an insurance company
in America
that will let Downey step
onto another movie set.
-People still wanted to work
with him,
but the insurance companies
just said no. Like, no.
It's not just that
they wouldn't insure Downey,
they wouldn't insure a show
that he was working on.
-In the language of addiction,
Downey has finally hit
rock bottom.
-His marriage has collapsed.
He is broke, and he has no way
to make a living.
-But it's his forced
unemployment
that may help save Downey.
He finally has nothing but time
to focus on his sobriety.
-The most vivid memory
I have of Robert Downey Jr.
is when he was getting
very serious about his recovery.
And he disappeared.
He finally got the message.
He focused on his recovery.
-And he stays sober
and he passes the drug tests.
And he impresses the judge and
the prosecutors and everybody
he has to impress.
He's clean for maybe
the first time
in a long time.
So the only question is,
will he get a job?
What he needed was a guardian
angel who would believe in him,
and he found
that person in Mel Gibson.
-In 2003,
when no one else will,
his old co-star
from "Air America"
offers Downey the lead role
in a film called
"The Singing Detective."
[ g*nshots ]
[ Woman screams ]
To get around
the insurance company's boycott
of Downey, Gibson personally
underwrites the movie
with his own money.
-Now,
remember he's richer than God,
but Gibson himself
covered the insurance costs.
He vouched
for Downey to show up.
-Despite the film's mostly
negative reviews by critics,
Gibson's generosity
resuscitates Downey's career
by giving Downey the chance
to win over the only audience
that really matters.
The insurance companies.
-He reproved to Hollywood
that he was a brilliant actor
who can transcend
even mediocre material.
-I'm here, to help you,
but you have to trust me.
-That same year,
he appears opposite Halle Berry
in the psychological
horror flick "Gothika."
-On that set, he met
and fell in love with
the love of his life.
-Susan Levin is a producer
on the film.
In 2003,
when they start dating,
she has one simple stipulation.
-She said quite early on,
like,
"If you do drugs,
I will break up with you."
And I think
the fantastic thing for --
for their relationship
is that he was ready to hear it.
He was finally ready
to understand what that meant.
He realized he'd found
someone special.
And it's been a relationship
now that's lasted 20 years.
I mean, in Hollywood terms,
that's practically a lifetime.
-Two years after
getting remarried,
Downey lands the role
that transforms him
from an award-winning actor
into a global superstar.
-Let's face it,
this is not the worst thing
you've got me doing.
-I think what makes
Iron Man and Robert Downey Jr.
such a good marriage
of material and person
is that this is someone
who actually is quite similar.
-Robert's grown up
in the public eye.
Everything good and bad
that's happened in his life,
everybody's seen.
And Tony Stark, he's a guy
who's also grown up
in the public eye.
-Iron Man in the comics
is an alcoholic.
He's someone who's kind of glib
and silly and funny.
He's not a kind of
serious superhero.
And that's not what
Robert Downey Jr. is either.
He's someone who's loud,
funny, quirky,
and also has these substance
abuse issues in the past.
-"Iron Man" is the first movie
and what will become Marvel's
$30 billion cinematic universe.
And as the face
of that franchise,
it makes Downey one of the
richest actors on the planet.
-What makes Robert Downey Jr.'s
life so interesting
is things happened off camera,
on camera, we see it,
you know, in only snippets.
And I think that makes
it more mysterious.
That makes it more
kind of exciting to dig into.
-We're just having fun
and getting started.
-And Downey finally digs
deeper into his own life
when he produces a documentary
called "Senior"
about his complex relationship
with his father who's dying
from Parkinson's disease
during its filming in 2020.
-There's a scene when
he's going up to see his father
in the apartment,
and, you know, his dad's dying.
And Downey's just like
a father's son.
You know, he's not a superstar.
He's concerned about his dad
still working out a lifetime
of issues,
but there for his father.
-The documentary also gives
his father an opportunity
to acknowledge
how that early exposure to drugs
affected his son's entire life.
-His father did regret
later on, I think, you know,
there was an idea that his
dad was like,
"Yeah, take this.
Who cares?"
But, actually,
later on in his life,
um, his dad did express a lot
of regret for that
and realized that it was
kind of a bad thing to do.
-I thought it was cute to let
him smoke it, and all that.
It was an idiot move
on our part, the lot of us.
To share that with our children.
I'm just happy he's here.
-[ Chuckles ]
-That's all.
-In 2021, Downey's
father dies at the age of 85.
But he leaves behind a son who
was finally coming to his own
and whose self-sabotaging days
seem very much behind him.
With this best supporting actor
win at the 2024 Oscars,
Downey,
now sober for 22 years,
is finally recognized
for the talent
he spent the first two decades
of his life
drowning out with drugs.
-I'd like to thank
my terrible childhood
and the academy in that order.
-Robert Downey Jr. is
the ultimate redemption story.
Nobody has fallen so far
and been so low
and come back so big
than Robert Downey Jr.
-Robert is truly
an inspiration.
He's one of the most
extraordinary recoveries
you could possibly imagine, and
he continues to inspire others.
He is humble in recovering.
He's -- He's a model for
how this should be done.
It gives everyone hope.
-There are these kind of
different waves
of Downey Jr.
Certainly, from a kind of hero's
journey, he is one for the ages,
like, he's someone who
seemed destined for greatness
from a very early age.
And then it all
seems to come unraveled.
Like, you could never see
any way back from where he was.
And yet, somehow, he's managed
to claw his way back
into the public consciousness
and become one of
the biggest actors of all time.
-The genius is so unstoppable
that he rose from the ashes
and became this superstar.
-He's a good person,
and he just gets better,
like fine wine.
And I think that's
why we wanted him to succeed.
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
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