The one director Robert Downey Jr is desperate to work with: “I’m really pissed off”
With his resurgence having been capped off by winning an Academy Award, the next chapter in the career of Robert Downey Jr could well be the most interesting yet.
It’s been a rocky road for the reformed hellraiser to reach this point, with his screen debut coming in his father’s 1970 comedy Pound. Between then and now, he’s experienced the highest of highs and lowest of lows that celebrity has to offer, but he’s come out on the other side as an A-list superstar.
An ill-fated and short-lived stint as a Saturday Night Live cast member, his first Oscar nomination for Chaplin, his self-destructive wilderness years brought on by his struggles with substance abuse and addiction, his inability to even get insured for a part, and his renaissance with Iron Man and Tropic Thunder have made Downey Jr’s story one of the most fascinating in recent Hollywood history.
These days, he’s able to be incredibly selective over which roles he chooses to play, and there aren’t many filmmakers in the industry who’d pass up the chance to have him as part of their cast. Obviously, that wasn’t quite the case two decades ago, but the star was nonetheless bemused that he’d yet to cross paths with a director he was very aware of.
“I saw School of Rock and I’m like, ‘Why haven’t I worked with Richard Linklater already?'” he said to Pop Entertainment at the time A Scanner Darkly was released. “They’re like, ‘Oh and he also did that’. I’m like, ‘Oh, and Dazed and Confused? Then by the time I got him I said, ‘I’m really pissed off’. I feel like you owe me some – what do you call it – retroactive swag. So he gave me the ten-year anniversary of Dazed and Confused t-shirt, which I still wear with relish.”
The rotoscoped sci-fi thriller came after Shane Black’s Kiss Kiss Bang Bang but before David Fincher’s Zodiac and Marvel’s Iron Man, with the Philip K. Dick adaptation serving as a reminder of Downey Jr’s innate gifts. He enjoyed the script when it first came his way, but he wanted to make sure the material had the right director attached. Fortunately, it did.
“It would have had to have been someone really special,” he admitted of his concerns, which were handily dashed by Linklater’s involvement, with Downey Jr “convinced that he is on of our great American directors.” It’s an assessment most would concur with looking at the body of work the five-time Oscar nominee has put together over the years, and he even got some Dazed and Confused merch as part of the deal.
They haven’t collaborated again since, but at least Downey Jr got the chance to tick Linklater off his list after finding himself pissed off that it hadn’t already happened.
