Why did Robert Downey Jr fill jars with urine on the set of ‘Zodiac’?
David Fincher and Robert Downey Jr. are two heavyweights in their respective fields. The former is a master auteur, gifting cinema with numerous classics that range from Se7en to Fight Club, and the latter is a fine character actor who has starred in a variety of notable roles. However, Downey is undoubtedly most famous for his performances as Tony Stark/Iron Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and as Sherlock Holmes in Guy Ritchie’s duo of films. Given both’s respective standings in Hollywood, no one was surprised that the result was wonderous when the two converged for 2007’s thriller, Zodiac.
However, both Downey and Fincher quickly found that their ways of working were at odds. Fincher is a notoriously hard taskmaster, who pays fine attention to detail, and for Zodiac, he would sometimes shoot over 70 takes of a scene just to find the perfect one. This stoic way of working quickly smothered the mercurial Downey’s spontaneous version of creativity.
“David knows what he wants, and he’s very clear about what he wants, and he’s very, very, very smart. But sometimes we’d do a lot of takes, and he’d turn, and he would say, because he had a computer there, ‘Delete the last 10 takes.’ And as an actor that’s very hard to hear,” Downey Jr.’s co-star Jake Gyllenhaal explained.
In a New York Times piece, Downey Jr. did admit that he could work within Fincher’s barometers, but he still felt stifled. “Sometimes it’s really hard because it might not feel collaborative, but ultimately filmmaking is a director’s medium,” he said in his typically sardonic style. “I just decided, aside from several times I wanted to garrote him, that I was going to give him what he wanted. I think I’m a perfect person to work for him, because I understand gulags.”
In his 2011 memoir, The Importance of Being Ernie, Barry Livingston, who had a minor role in Zodiac, recalls Downey Jr. appears to be the “most stressed” from Fincher’s multiple takes. “He is a performer who thrives on spontaneity. Repetition can sometimes lead to stagnation for such quicksilver artists. After the 20th take (occasionally more), Downey would look at me and quietly roll his eyes from fatigue,” Livingston wrote.
Interestingly, when speaking in Keanu Reeves’ acclaimed 2012 documentary Side by Side (per Cheat Sheet), Fincher discussed why the cast of Zodiac hated the incredible number of takes he was shooting, with it boiling down to them not having enough time to use the bathroom.
Allegedly, this irked Downey Jr. so much that in protest, he would leave mason jars full of urine around the set in a bid to show the director that he could not work in this way.
“Robert Downey actually came up to me and said, ‘I can’t work like this. I never get to go to my trailer,” Fincher said in Side by Side. “I can never get my shit together. I’m on my feet 14 hours a day.’ He actually left mason jars of urine on the set, like over in the corner. He’d pee and bring it back as a form of protest.”
