From superhero to Sherlock, Robert Downey, Jr., has been on a tear, propelled by a tireless work ethic and a dedication to the simplest details. By Sophie Dahl.
Photographed by Mario Testino. Story From Men’s Vogue

I’m sitting at a low wooden table in a London pub on a particularly sodden Tuesday night, waiting for Robert Downey, Jr. The pub is not any old pub, it is the Punchbowl, a Mayfair stalwart. One of its proprietors, Guy Ritchie, happens to be the director of Sherlock Holmes, in which Downey will star as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s tweed-clad Victorian detective amid a formidable cast that includes Jude Law and Rachel McAdams. (The film is due out this fall.)

The place is heaving with an after-work throng. I am in a mild panic as I’m wondering how I (and my tape recorder) will ever hear RDJ in the clamor. As I’m craning around like Gumby, I hear a voice asking the barman very politely where I might be found. I stand up and say hello.

Downey is wearing a rain hat and smart raincoat and jauntily swinging an umbrella. He gives me a warm kiss on both cheeks and scoots into the corner. He is still Iron Man buff, maintained by the martial art he loves, wing chun, and I reckon he could kick the shit out of any bad guys who might be lurking in W1 tonight. His face is boyish, the picture of rosy, well-tended 44-year-old health, later explained by the cornucopia of naturopathic remedies in the bag to his right—a security blanket of sorts, always close at hand. He neatly arranges his rain paraphernalia, but the hat stays on.

In an act of sly premeditation, I have put my cigarettes out on the table in the hope that after all I’ve read, it might be true that Downey still smokes Camel straights and may possibly join me outside for one if it all becomes too much. He doesn’t take the cigarette bait. Instead, he eyes my Diet Coke with distaste and asks the waitress for a real one.

Sobriety has not tempered his wit. He tells me about a Sherlock Holmes read-through at which the cast sat with name tags and introduced themselves. When it came to his turn he said, “Hi, I’m Robert Downey, Jr., and I make faces for cash and chicken.”

His wife of four years, Susan, was a producer on Ritchie’s RocknRolla, which Downey adored. “So, I’m on the phone with Guy—I think he called for Susan—and at the end of it he goes, ‘Yeah, by the way, I talked about you for Sherlock, but you’re not right for it.’ I took umbrage at that and really wanted to do it.” He laughs—an acknowledgment that what we can’t have is infinitely more enticing. “They wound up thinking that Susan, Guy Ritchie, and I would be an interesting combination; that Susan and I could actually be on location together, which is the only way I would do it; how enthusiastic I was; and what a big fan I am. So why not go hire the guy who was finally in a hit movie”—Iron Man—”after 25 years?”

Downey’s self-deprecation doesn’t quite fly. His 1992 Oscar nomination for Chaplin does not meet the 25-year mark by a long shot. But he has had an unorthodox career, going back to the age of five, when he played a sick puppy in Pound, a film by his experimental-director father, Robert Downey, Sr., best known for Putney Swope. In 1987, the actor broke hearts with his portrayal of good-time-boy-gone-postal Julian Wells in Less than Zero, Bret Easton Ellis’s dark tale of disaffected youth in L.A. His performance crept under the skin and itched there for days after. You didn’t know whether you wanted to cook him a good meal, kiss him, or punch him in the face—possibly all three. His Charlie Chaplin was a possession rather than an interpretation, and I would hazard that he wasn’t just good, he was truly brilliant.
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