Word: downey
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Five years ago, Robert Downey Jr. enjoyed the Academy Awards from a choice orchestra seat in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, honored as a Best Actor nominee for his acclaimed performance in the biopic Chaplin. During last month's ceremony his vantage point wasn't quite so glamorous: he watched the show on television through steel bars at the Los Angeles County Men's Central Jail, where he was serving time for violating probation after testing positive for drugs...
...didn't expect her to win. Isn't that nice?' I was just another shmuck watching it, you know?" Because of the jail's curfew, TV was shut off before the show ended; he didn't get to see Titanic win the Best Picture award. For a star like Downey, who has made 37 films and comes from a show-biz family, that might be considered cruel and unusual punishment...
Dressed for the interview in a hipster blue bowling shirt, black slacks and loosely tied sneakers, Downey looks good after serving 113 days in the joint. Well, maybe except for the platinum-blond streaks in his dark hair, dyed for a new movie role. His once bloodshot eyes seem clear and focused. The famous six-stitch gash he received in a vicious prison brawl is virtually undetectable on his still boyish face, thanks to a controversial furlough that allowed him to visit a plastic surgeon. And though he initially insisted that no questions about jail be asked, he not only...
...know what blew my mind more than anything else?" he asks, chuckling. "They had that book The Artist's Way in there, and on the side was stamped L.A. COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPT. It just seemed so funny." Downey read whatever friends sent him: a biography of early BBC exec John Reith, Stephen King horror stories, inspirational works. "I can tell you a lot about the Bible if you want," he says. "Both the Old and the New Testament." He goes into a short, funny riff about what might have happened if he had had "some major spiritual awakening...
...Downey has reason to be in good spirits. Not only has he just been sprung from the slammer, he also has a new movie opening this week, Two Girls and a Guy, that's generating strong buzz for his role as a duplicitous lothario confronted by the two women he's been dating simultaneously (see review). And he has two more films coming out this year: In Dreams, in which he plays a psycho telepathically stalking Annette Bening, and Friends and Lovers, an indie comedy-drama that finds him playing a ski instructor. Though he must return each night...