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Dec 18,2005 - Dec 25,2005 |
You can't keep a good man down
Troubled actor Robert Downey Jr. returns to movies in Keith Gordon's The Singing Detective
By Angela Baldassarre
Originally Published: 2003-11-09
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."
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