You can't keep a good man down

Troubled actor Robert Downey Jr. returns to movies in Keith Gordon's The Singing Detective

There's little question that troubled but incredibly talented actor Robert Downey Jr. owes his sanity and career to his friends. In the past few years he's endured drug abuse, parole violations, rehab and jail time, and despite all this, he has weathered criticism with the support of adoring fans and fellow celebrities. One A-list well-wisher, Mel Gibson, is responsible for giving Downey his latest comeback vehicle, The Singing Detective, his first film since 2000's Wonder Boys.
Based on Dennis Potter's critically acclaimed 1986 BBC television series, The Singing Detective tells the story of crime novelist Dan Dark (Downey Jr.) who, languishing in his hospital bed, occupies his time by mapping out a screenplay in his head about a cynical private investigator who doubles as a singer in a dance band. His lead character is slowly drawn into a web of intrigue during the murder investigation of a prostitute in 1950's Los Angeles. Heavily medicated, the border between reality and fiction starts to blur in his mind. Mel Gibson co-stars as the enigmatic Dr. Gibbon, the hospital psychiatrist who dares to take on Dark's tortured mind, and Robin Wright-Penn as Dark's estranged wife.
Tandem talked with Robert Downey Jr. when he was in Toronto recently.

Were you familiar with the BBC series before you read the script?
"I wasn't familiar with anything. Well, I knew Mel a little bit. And I was in Malibu and he came by and did some chiropractic move on me. Then he went out to the car and he was going to leave, and he comes back and he goes, 'Oh, by the way, take a look at this.' And I'm thinking 'Why's he handing me this British tripe... This guy's nuts, I mean he gives a good adjustment, but besides that he's a crackpot.' Then I started watching the videos. Then I really got pissed. 'I can't do this,' and then Patty Norris (production designer for all those Jonathan Lynn movies, a really, eccentric, brilliant, smart, industry gal) goes 'You know what? I don't understand why Mel isn't doing it himself - he's much better at this.' (And I thought) you vicious witch... And the truth is, if you look at this part, and look at Gibson, and look at what Michael Gabon did in the series, he came in and basically was unrecognizable, and super efficient and hilarious. This would have been an amazing vehicle for himself."

No. You were perfect.
"I was perfect, but he would have been better. Sometimes the perfect thing isn't what would have been best."

Why didn't he want to do it?
"You know what? He says things, and two years later, you get 'em. And he doesn't even know what he's saying when he says it. He kind of drops these little pebbles around, and if you go and look at 'em after you've stomped it into the carpet, it holds up. He'll say 'I've got a feeling about this. I know you don't like feelings, but I got a feeling about you and this. Give me a call... no money.' And then I say now 'I can't be abused in this way, by you and your company.' And he goes, 'Alright. I'll pull the offer.' And I go 'fuck!' So I said alright, I'll do it. And he goes, great, great, alright, I'll do it too.' Where are you going? 'Going to Italy, to do a little movie call The Passion.' He really does have something better to do."

How about you? Did you have a better offer that you could have pursued?
"Yeah. A surfing instructor."

A lot of people I've talked to who work in films have said that they want to be there for you. How does that make you feel?
"(Pause) Isn't that weird? I love you. Sucker. Nowadays, I see how that goes. If this incurs this kind of response from you, then that's on you. And that probably has to do with her and him and them and you. I'm kind of like dead and dark. I'm kind of funny and charming, but pizza face, and just kind of gross. Conspicuous... consumption... I don't know."

You took a licking and kept on ticking. You look very well.
"Yeah, I got shot out of a cannon into a fuckin' pinball machine. And you know what? When it said 'Those who would like to sign up for getting shot out of a cannon....please register here', I was like, 'Oh, man, that's my gig'."

Yeah, well, we missed you.
"Thank you. I'd love to go back and do my movies all over again. Just to waste everyone's time in a new way. It's still my MO. Deprive and deport."

Is that right? When you look at Chaplin, you'd like to go back?
"No, you know what? That's still an avoidance of intimacy with something else, because the truth is, it's like going to an ADR session and going 'I'm going to fix this scene.' Christ, no you can't. It was raining, just say it like you said it and maybe it will still work. I came up against that the other day. I see something. I don't like what I see, because I'm involved. I figure I'm going to fix it. I've depersonalized myself and then I start trying. And when I start trying, I start doing, and when I start doing, we're fucked. Because what I like to do is, like I'm not a big restoration guy, I'm a deconstructivist at heart. And that's why... the good thing about The Singing Detective was that I didn't have time to ponder it, or become precious about it. All of a sudden I had to go into this world.
"You have three things. You have to be very still, very cool, and you have to be a man's man. I was like, I have nothing to hold onto. I've done that tragic thing, the gifted comedy thing, you know, I've done a lot of different things, but this was all new territory. Doing those dance numbers, I had to look into my image bag ...that's kind of you know, optimistic, mid-50s, like maybe Sandra Dee would like you. That Singing Detective stuff scared me so bad. I can't run in and do this, but when I'm watching the ending... I just thought 'careful with your voice, use the gun, blow the thing...' I mean, it was the most technical crap. And yet, the technique was what these guys had. I've had the technique strapped to me like armour, and then walked through a hail of arrows to the other side, and they say 'Wow, you made it'. But I'm like, 'Yeah, but who made the armour, and how did they do this, you know?' This time, it was like, 'Go build this yourself.' That's my mantra when I'm working. 'I can't, I can't, I can't'."

Are we wrong to read into this too much about Robert Downey Jr. exorcizing personal demons here?
"The real deal is that I didn't even get it until last night's screening. I mean, I'm sorry. Last night, I said to myself, 'This movie's about you, you punk bitch. Wow.' Because all that stuff, and my childhood and my adulthood was really insane and the cause of countless worries for people who had some feeling for me. But you know what? It got me here. And if I'm not worried for 20 seconds, then everybody else better back the fuck up. Because when I was looking my best, I said, I know exactly what I'm going to parlay this into. Where's the man with the bag? Because it's intolerable to me to be here now and acting like everything's okay. Unless, of course, everything is okay."

How does this role compare to Gothika which also comes out this month?
"Gothika was like this: go to Montreal, fall in love. Play squash. Tell the person you've fallen in love with that you're in love with them. Have her say 'don't talk to me until we're done shooting.' Play squash. Oh yeah. Shoot the movie. And again, one more time, I'm doing this part and he's like this really left-wing kind of supershrink logistician. Everything is about what he's learned and what he knows, and he's always looking at the landscape with this real objectivity. And of course I'm saying, 'I can't, I can't...' People really like you in this movie. And I'm like, that doesn't happen twice in one year. But it's a good movie, and it works and I did it."

You're having a resurrection here. You're going to have to get up off the floor at some point. What are you going to do with this second chance? Are there particular sorts of parts you want to play?
"I've got a lot of stuff going on right now. This guy named Ditto, he's doing huge signings at Barnes and Noble. He wrote a book about growing up in Queens in 86. You couldn't write something this insane about Catholic boys growing up and what happens. It's a spiritually poignant story. And the guy's here in Toronto right now, you've seen him around. He's wearing this necklace with golden gloves on it. And the film starts off, he's going to the golden gloves. And it's like, Ditto, did you train? Do you know how to box? And he's like, 'I got an idea.' And he goes in, and that's where the movie starts. Then it goes back to his past and how he grew up. It's great. It's a story about my generation. So that's one thing, I'm producing that. In the last two years we've taken it from the book to a script."

Are you going to write a book?
"Yeah. Probably. But, you know what? An unexamined life is probably best left unexamined."

The Singing Detective is currently playing in local cinemas.

Publication Date: 2003-11-09
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=3333