Robert Downey Jr.: Tropical Warrior!

Hey, actor Robert Downey Jr. is a hero! Yes, he's Ironman but he's also the hero of his own life story. Several years ago, the talented, popular actor was on the far downside due to trouble with drugs. Now, Robert is on a roll enjoying a second chance at fame in flicks! He's appearing as an Oscar-winning method actor who dyes his skin darker to play an African-American soldier in the Ben Stiller-directed action comedy Tropic Thunder. The character might risk crossing over into being un-P.C. but Downey pulls it off. The guy is just funny!

For our Beverly Hills interview, we were entertained to see Robert coming into the room sporting a great tan and a cool goatee (he'll be playing Sherlock Holmes next). His fanboy side was on display in his blue "Hollywood" tee topped by a nice black suit coat and jeans. Topping it all off was a black 1950's style fedora with an orange and taupe band around it. Got all that? It's quite a picture! We're not through yet. The actor was carrying a black plastic, industrial-looking lunchbox thingie. We have since learned that it was chocked full of vitamins/herbal medicine and, uh, his cigs! Quite the contradiction but then, the guy has given up a lot of his former vices! Of course, every reporter he spoke to got a different take in answer to "what's in the box?"......

Robert: This recent maelstrom of success has put me in an interesting political position. Actually, I'm working for the department of defense. If something alarming goes down I might have to enter my coordinates and be picked up by helicopter [laughs].

TeenHollywood: Uh, alrightee then! When you first read this controversial character in the Tropic Thunder script, what did you think about playing him?

Robert: I thought like that thing when someone says, 'Hey, you want to come over for dinner.' You say, 'I'd love to.' They say, 'Great and would you like me to soak you in lamp oil and light you on fire right after dessert?' Then you go, 'I don't want to come to dinner.' The idea of playing the actor who's playing a black guy, it's more of a fun read than it probably is a good idea of a thing to do in your career. If it goes well maybe it goes well and maybe you open up the 'L.A. Times' and it says that Robert Downey Jr. is flat out hilarious, like it did this morning, or you're vilified for having made a decision to do something that people thought was offensive.

TeenHollywood: You and Jack Black and Ben are so funny together. Do you do a lot of improvising or is it all in the script?

Robert: With Ben, sometimes we'd write something on the way down to Vegas for an exhibitors thing. We just wrote an idea on the plane and then drafted it and did it so that it was actually quite rehearsed, every beat of that.

TeenHollywood: How did you decide how this character would speak; what he would sound like? Was it a lot of work?

Robert: For this character, I was like, 'Okay, Ben, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it! Woo!' Then I sat there and thought, 'Oh, God, this is terrible. I can't do it. I can't do it!' I tried the voice on the phone [with Ben] and he laughed and my first thought was that he was just placating me, that it's not really that cool. He's just trying to help me feel comfortable and he's trying to contain my anxiety. But, once I got the voice and once we got the make-up and the look right then I started thinking about how he should move. But to me it was so much more of an attitude thing and who you're playing off of.

TeenHollywood: There's a lot of footage that we hear will be on the DVD, a "mockumentary", a fake and funny "making of" featurette. You are in that, right?

Robert: Yeah. The idea occurred to me, what if Kirk Lazarus [his actor character] started taking the actual [true life] Lincoln Osiris's psych meds to try get to know [the guy's] mental state better and then he moves in with the deceased guy's wife who is now like a sixty-five-year-old Vietnamese woman. They have a torrid love affair and he's trying to reconnect with the children they had who are like, 'You're not my dad. I actually liked you in that other movie though.' Now he's on the psyche meds and so he's freaking out. That to me could be a whole other movie!

TeenHollywood: Well, Kirk does like to really get way too much into his characters so that makes crazy sense. I assume Ironman 2 has to be in the works, right?

Robert: Yes. Ironman 2 is in the works.

TeenHollywood: It's not going to co-star The Hulk is it?

Robert: No. I'm partial too. I want to keep everything in focus and keep it focused on me [laughs]. I think it's for the best of the movie.

TeenHollywood: Well, we don't want to take the focus off you.

Robert: [smiling] Ever! Or take such a big leap whereas before we were grounded in reality and now we start going into the Marvel [Comics] Universe. I just know that we have some great scenes that I think will be really surprising. It's going to be good.

TeenHollywood: Are you going to have any down time between the next Ironman and Sherlock Holmes?

Robert: No. Straight back to back. Sometimes it's hard to stay grounded in the best of times, but I think that when things really start spinning, it's like the 'Wizard of Oz' and your house is spinning. What are you going to do, be like, [angry voice] 'I need this house to stop spinning right now!' So when things are going [like that] all you have, for me anyway, all I have is the only thing that matters anyway which is like, 'Am I cool right now? Am I being honest right now? Am I taking care of myself right now? Have I offended anyone? Do I need to make an apology to anyone? And have I eaten before noon?' because that can effect all the other things.

TeenHollywood: When and where are you starting Sherlock Holmes?

Robert: October 6th in London and then some stage work in New York. We go to England and do all the locations in the UK and then we're going to do the stage here.

TeenHollywood: Is that movie based on some of the books or is it a whole new script?

Robert: It's brand new. It's interesting and it's very bold. It assumes that Watson has been into this for some years and is already trying to get away from him as he did many times during the genesis of their relationship.

TeenHollywood: You are also in a touching drama about a homeless musician with concert hall dreams; The Soloist. Have you seen the final film yet?

Robert: I've seen many scenes, but not the complete project, but what I've seen is pretty marvelous. Jamie [Foxx] is definitely at the top of his game and it's amazing. He played Nathaniel [Ayers]. There are some shots that honestly we would watch and people were crying and I thought that was such a base old Hollywood thing where you're watching a certain shot on playback and people are like [crying]. But, there was something about the way [the scene] was executed and where it was at in the movie that I think everyone was projecting their own lack of emotional fulfillment on it.

TeenHollywood: Okay, a long time ago, you sang a bit in a movie. Are you ever going to make a musical film?

Robert: Yes. I am.

TeenHollywood: A known musical? Which one?

Robert: I don't know. I've got a lot on my plate, thanks. I'm feeling enough f**king pressure that now I have to bang out a musical? [he's teasing us and laughs].

TeenHollywood: No! We won't force you but do you really want to do one?

Robert: [his serious face] I seriously do. In fact that's just about all I want to do aside from the stuff that they're paying me to do.

TeenHollywood: So, we'll read that the next film you pick will be a musical?

Robert: Yeah, but please don't hold me to that because I might feel toxic like I violated your trust.

TeenHollywood: We'll back off and hope. So, you just aren't going to say what's in the box you are carrying?

Robert: I'm not going to tell you what's in the box. This is literally the only mystery that I have left. [Okay, well, it's no longer a mystery but he tried].

TeenHollywood: Can you just enjoy this wonderful time of success, coming around for you again or do you just think...'It's all downhill from here'?

Robert: I think there's more pressure to have a good day when things are good because you're supposed to feel a certain way and if you don't feel that way, does that mean that there's something wrong with you? No. A good day or a bad day, the way that you feel is the way that you feel and it usually doesn't match up [to what is happening in your life].

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Lynn Barker is a Hollywood-based entertainment journalist and produced screenwriter.