The Definitive Roles For: Robert Downey Jr.

In a career that spans three decades, Robert Downey Jr. has proven himself adept at playing anything from comedic relief to serious drama to action hero. It’s hard to imagine Iron Man being portrayed by anyone else nowadays, but Downey’s comeback story is just as interesting as his career on the silver screen. Let’s take a look at some of his most iconic roles and find out what makes them so memorable.

As Charlie Chaplin/Himself In Chaplin (1992)

This musical biopic tells the life story of actor and comedian Charlie Chaplin, from his start in England to his work in Hollywood. While he did not sing in the movie, Downey Jr.’s performance of Chaplin earned him an Oscar nod for Best Actor. Despite a few hiccups along the way, Downey put on an impressive display of physical comedy and mimicked Chaplin’s famous moustache-and-walking stick shtick with ease. The film was both a critical and box office success, earning over $50 million worldwide and earning Downey Jr. a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical.

As Kirk Lazarus In Tropic Thunder (2008)

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The Definitive Roles For: Robert Downey Jr.

Of all the actors working today, Robert Downey Jr. is by far the most interesting and versatile. He’s one of the few who can be a leading man and an “actor’s actor” at the same time, effortlessly switching between roles that require him to be charming or obnoxious, funny or dramatic, dignified or downright embarrassing.

Downey has been a working actor for nearly 30 years (he made his debut in his father’s film Pound in 1970), but he’s had a particularly busy year — and it’s not even over yet. He recently appeared alongside Jamie Foxx in The Soloist, and he’ll be seen alongside Rachel McAdams in Sherlock Holmes later this month. In honor of these two performances, we’ve put together this guide to the best — and worst — Robert Downey Jr. movies of all time.

In the mid-1970s, Robert Downey Jr. had a choice: He could either continue living at home with his father, who had taught him to read by age 3 and inspired in him a profound love of literature, or he could move out and pursue a career as an actor. He chose the latter.

It is tough to say whether the elder Downey would have been proud of his son’s decision if he were alive today. But it is safe to say that the elder Downey would not have been proud of his son’s behavior over the last decade or so. In that time, Mr. Downey has seen his promising career ruined by drug abuse, which led to various scrapes with the law and several stints in jail or prison.

We are pleased to report that Robert Downey Jr.’s long-awaited comeback–which began in earnest last year with his role as a gay man in “Wonder Boys”–is finally complete. He has displayed acting chops that have not been seen since “Chaplin,” for which he received an Oscar nomination for Best Actor in 1992. And he has done it without touching drugs for more than two years now–something even Charlie Chaplin himself never managed to do.

The definitive roles for Robert

When Robert Downey Jr. was arrested in November 2000, one of the charges against him was “being under the influence of a controlled substance.” That phrase could have applied to much of the previous decade. After his arrest, Downey checked himself into an L.A. hospital and later told London’s Sunday Telegraph that he had been “literally hallucinating on a minute-by-minute basis.”

It was a long fall for one of Hollywood’s most promising young actors, who followed up his breakthrough role as Charlie Chaplin with a string of performances that seemed to improve with each release. He earned an Oscar nomination for playing Kirk Douglas’ son in 1992’s “Chaplin,” then lit up the screen as the quick-witted title character in 1993’s “Heart and Souls” and made a memorable impression in 1994’s “Natural Born Killers.”

In 1997 came another Oscar nomination for his work in Curtis Hanson’s adaptation of James Ellroy’s novel “L.A. Confidential,” and he blended well with an impressive cast in “Wonder Boys” (2000), but by then Downey had developed such a reputation for being unreliable that studios were reluctant to take him on.

Tropic Thunder

Robert Downey Jr. gives his career-best performance as Kirk Lazarus, a five-time Oscar winner who undergoes “pigmentation alteration” surgery to play African-American Staff Sergeant Lincoln Osiris in the Vietnam War movie Tropic Thunder. The role earned Downey an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture Comedy.

Zodiac

In David Fincher’s Zodiac, Downey plays San Francisco Chronicle political cartoonist Robert Graysmith, who becomes obsessed with trying to find the Zodiac killer after the murders of his colleague, Paul Stine (Mark Ruffalo), and his wife, Melanie (Chloe Sevigny). The film also stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Inspector David Toschi and Anthony Edwards as San Francisco Police Department Inspector William Armstrong.

A Scanner Darkly

Downey lends his voice talents to Richard Linklater’s A Scanner Darkly, based on the science fiction novel by Philip K. Dick. In the futuristic tale of a society riddled by drug abuse, Downey voices James Barris, who is addicted to Substance D, which causes its users to experience reality as fragmented and warped. The film also features Winona Ryder and Keanu

Robert Downey Jr. is arguably one of the finest actors of his generation. However, the one thing he might be better known for is his long and troubled history with drug addiction.

The actor’s character, Tony Stark, in “Iron Man” and “The Avengers” is a genius inventor and weapons manufacturer who in his spare time fights evil as a superhero. As he battles bad guys as Iron Man, Downey has also been battling his own demons.

Ironically, it was the very demons that plagued him off-screen that made him such a perfect fit for the part of Tony Stark in Iron Man. Just like his character, Downey had once been on top of the world only to have it all come crashing down around him — but unlike Stark, Downey didn’t have an arc reactor inside his chest to keep him alive.

Downey was arrested for drug possession and sentenced to three years in prison. During this time he was fired from “Ally McBeal” (1997) where he had been working since 2000.

However, in 2010 he was chosen by GQ Magazine as their “Man of the Year.” He also received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his

From the time he was a child, Robert Downey Jr. was destined to be an actor. His father is the filmmaker Robert Downey Sr., and his mother is actress Elsie Downey.

Downey Jr. made his acting debut at age five in his father’s film “Pound,” and later appeared in youth theater productions at New York’s Stagedoor Manor. But he soon found himself drawn to drugs, and by the age of 13 was experimenting with marijuana and other substances.

After graduating from Santa Monica High School in 1982, Downey moved to New York to study acting with legendary teacher Stella Adler, and began appearing in his father’s films as well as other independent films like “The Pick-Up Artist” (1987) and “Less Than Zero” (1987). In 1988, he appeared in his first leading role in Franco Zeffirelli’s film version of “Taming of the Shrew,” starring alongside Elizabeth Taylor and Katharine Hepburn. He then reunited with the director for the television movie “Too Young the Hero” (1988), playing a teenager who joins the Navy during World War II.

Downey’s career took off in 1992 when he starred opposite Marisa Tomei in “Chaplin.” For his portrayal