“I am so glad we got to see that”: the co-star Woody Harrelson called a genius
The term “genius” gets bandied around so often that it’s started to lose all meaning in certain contexts, but Woody Harrelson is far from alone in naming one of his many illustrious co-stars as being fully deserving of the moniker.
Some people gradually get better at acting as the years progress, some dedicate themselves completely to their craft to the point they become one with their characters, and plenty have made decent names and stellar reputations for themselves despite not being particularly talented in the conventional sense.
There are a select few who seem to be born with the innate gifts required to succeed in the cutthroat world of cinema, though, and the majority of his contemporaries would agree that Robert Downey Jr is one of them. Prodigiously gifted, the only person who could have prevented the second-generation star from reaching the summit of Hollywood was himself, which is pretty much what happened.
Never were there any doubts over Downey Jr.’s performative abilities, but personal issues plagued him throughout much of his adult life, to the point where even hiring him was deemed as too much of a risk from an insurance perspective. It was Mel Gibson who stepped in to lend an unlikely assist in that regard, but Harrelson also got the chance to work with him at a time when his wilderness years weren’t quite over.
Richard Linklater’s animated sci-fi thriller A Scanner Darkly was Downey’s first credit following a resurgent turn in Shane Black’s fantastic festive caper Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. The film released in July 2006 just two months before the actor was named as the lead in Marvel Studios’ Iron Man, and with David Fincher’s Zodiac still yet to premiere, he very much remained a wildcard.
As Harrelson explained to Moviehole, though, he was blown away watching one of their generation’s best actors “go off” and improvise to make the film better. “He really is a genius,” he marvelled. “One time we did this scene where the four of us are all around in the living room, talking about this bike, and Downey just went off on this great tirade. And then Rick cut, and me and Winona [Ryder] just looked at each other and she says, ‘I am so glad we got to see that’. And I said, ‘Me too. That was amazing.'”
Not to say that Harrelson could have predicted less than two years removed from collaborating with Downey on A Scanner Darkly that he’d be sitting pretty as an A-lister superstar having completed one of the most remarkable comebacks in recent memory, but there was never any danger his highly-publicised personal problems would suddenly render him a bad actor overnight given the sheer volume of his ability.
