The performance so bad it shattered Robert Downey Jr’s confidence: “They hated me”
Every actor has likely given a performance that they’re not proud of at some point or another. Unfortunately, once a movie is made, it’s out there for the rest of eternity – there’s no hiding from a performance that you’re embarrassed by.
Before Robert Downey Jr won an Oscar for his supporting role in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer and established himself as one of Hollywood’s biggest stars (a Marvel icon, no less), he made a few near-fatal blunders in his career. The 1990s saw him suffer from addiction issues that led him to appear on and off screen rather sporadically, unable to fulfil his potential due to frequent stints in prison and rehab, but in the previous decade, he’d shown real potential – if not for one major mishap.
He forged a path into Hollywood through a few minor roles in his father’s, Robert Downey Sr, movies as a child in the 1970s, eventually appearing in various comedies during the following decade, like Weird Science and Back to School. Often starring alongside Brat Pack actors, he joined Anthony Michael Hall for Johnny Be Good in 1988, but this proved to be a terrible, terrible decision.
The movie was a massive failure on all accounts, and it’s actually a miracle that Downey’s career didn’t end then and there as a result. “They hated me in Johnny Be Good. The Los Angeles Times crucified me. They said I sounded like Pee-wee Herman emerging from a coma,” the actor told Rolling Stone in 1988. Now that’s brutal.
Downey certainly didn’t give the greatest performance in Johnny Be Good, but it’s proof that you really can come back from a terrible movie and eventually become the highest-paid actor in Hollywood – and have a golden statuette to place on your mantelpiece.
“I had stopped returning my fan mail, but now I’m gonna start again, now that Johnny Be Good came out and no one cares about me,” Downey continued. Clearly, he couldn’t see into the future – well, let’s be real, no one expected Downey to have the career turnaround he did – and the negative backlash actually knocked his confidence.
Within a few years, however, the actor somehow landed the lead role in the Richard Attenborough-directed Chaplin, taking on the part of the legendary silent star to widespread acclaim. He even earned an Oscar nomination, coming a long way in just a few short years following the Razzie-nominated Johnny Be Good.
Clearly, all actors are capable of giving a bad performance every so often – not even Downey has been immune from turning in a Pee-wee-esque performance. Grossing just under $18million, the movie arguably remains the weakest entry in Downey’s filmography, and he’d much prefer it if people forgot about it.
Luckily, with the amount of cash he is rolling in these days, Johnny Be Good is now just a tiny footnote in the grand scheme of an incredibly successful career. Downey’s rise to fame in Hollywood ebbed and flowed, but by the early 2000s, out of rehab and back on track, the actor showed people what he had been capable of all along.
