“Dreadful, awful, depressing”: The experience Robert Downey Jr hated
With one of the most phoenix-like comebacks in Hollywood history having long since been completed, the crowning achievement in the career of Robert Downey Jr. looks set to serve as the catalyst for the latest chapter in a remarkable professional life.
His Academy Award win for ‘Best Supporting Actor’ in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer didn’t just make him the first Saturday Night Live cast member to win an Oscar, but it marked the next evolution of a performer that’s experienced both the highest of highs and lowest of lows during their half-century in the business.
He began acting as a child in his father Robert Downey Sr.’s movies, failed miserably at sketch comedy, was heralded as a generational talent in the making when Chaplin earned him his first Oscar nomination, and came dangerously close to throwing it all away on multiple occasions before the part of Tony Stark elevated him from an insurance risk to a bankable A-list superstar almost overnight.
The summer of 2008 was a huge one for Downey Jr, and not only because Iron Man lit the touchpaper on his re-ascension. Ben Stiller’s raucous comedy Tropic Thunder was his second smash hit of the year, and landed him a ‘Best Supporting Actor’ nod at the Oscars for his merciless takedown of egocentric actors.
Kirk Lazarus was a dude playing a dude disguised as another dude, and while the people involved in Tropic Thunder have admitted that putting an actor in blackface and using it as a running joke is something they wouldn’t get away with today, the promotional trail ended up causing Downey Jr one of his biggest embarassments.
Alongside co-stars Stiller and Jack Black, the trio appeared on American Idol to fill in as The Pips during a rendition of Gladys Knight’s ‘Midnight Train to Georgia’. Their commitment can’t be faulted, but for the long-time resident of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it was an excruciating experience.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Downey Jr referred to his American Idol guest spot as not only a “dreadful, awful, depressing” thing to be a part of, but also “disquieting to my integrity.” Either he thought it would be a good idea at the time and quickly discovered otherwise, or it was a contractual obligation the Tropic Thunder stars were required to fulfil.
His soul may have been quietly leaving his body for every second the performance went on, but Downey Jr couldn’t be accused of phoning it in. There was plenty of gusto to be found as he, Stiller, and Black stepped up to the plate and became The Pips for a new generation, even if he couldn’t contain his disdain for taking part after it had aired.
