The actor Robert Downey Jr called the second coming of Charlie Chaplin: “The closest living thing”
Having earned the first Academy Award nomination of his career for playing Charlie Chaplin, Robert Downey Jr is in a better position than most people in Hollywood to pass judgment on which modern-day star is the closest thing to the legendary actor and filmmaker’s reincarnation.
His work in Richard Attenborough’s 1992 biographical drama remains one of the finest performances of the second-generation star’s entire career, offering a glimpse into the generational talent Downey Jr would have become much earlier were it not for his repeated battles against drug problems.
Although he’s not a method actor by trade, he knew he had to pull out all of the stops after securing the coveted role and beating out several of the industry’s other rising stars – including Jim Carrey, Johnny Depp and Tom Cruise – for the part, sending Downey Jr down a rabbit hole that saw him devour as much information about Chaplin as possible in preparation.
Beyond his indelible contributions to the medium through his beloved films and iconic character of ‘The Tramp’, Chaplin was also a pioneer, trailblazer, and history-maker. One of the most important figures in cinema history, he was among the first on-camera performers to seize control of their own destinies and shape their futures, founding a film studio to develop, produce, and maintain creative control of his work.
There’s nobody else like Chaplin, even if Downey Jr has his suggestion for the next best thing. It’s a head-scratcher, right enough; after he told GQ that the heir apparent to such a transformative presence was the guy who got his genitals trapped in a zipper in There’s Something About Mary, asked if he could milk Robert De Niro’s nipples, and once dreamed of opening an institute for kids who can’t read good and want to learn to do other stuff good, too.
“I mean, I can’t say enough about the guy,” Downey Jr said of Ben Stiller. “He is the closest living thing to Chaplin that I’ve ever experienced. He understands drama, he’s a force in the editing room, he knows exactly how he wants the set to look and how to frame the shot, telling the DP who shot The Thin Red Line to use the 85mm lens.”
Most people wouldn’t look at Stiller and immediately see Chaplin reborn, but Downey Jr clearly fell in love with his working methods and knowledge of the art form when they worked together on the 2008 comedy Tropic Thunder, where the latter famously – or infamously – notched an Oscar nomination for ‘Best Supporting Actor’ by playing a dude playing a dude disguised as another dude.
The director of Reality Bites, The Cable Guy, Zoolander, and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty isn’t the most obvious candidate to be declared as Chaplin V2.0, but Downey Jr would evidently disagree.
