# data[].attributes.body
How Downey himself helped create his star image, through his own movies, books, statements, etc

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How the Media interpreted his image

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How the Primary and Secondary Media have come together and created the public star image of Downey Jr.

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'Robert Downey Jr.' (no date). Available at: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/107593878571254166/ (Accessed 8 November 2023)

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Weird Science (1985) Directed by J. Hughes [Feature Film] Universal City, California: Universal Pictures

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Downey Jr plays Ian, the school bully.

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Tuff Turf (1985) Directed by F. Kiersch [Feature Film]. California: New World Pictures.

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Downey Jr plays Jimmy Parker, a rebellious drummer

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The Pick-up Artist (1987) Directed by J. Toback [Feature Film]. Century City, Los Angeles: 20th Century Fox 

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Downey Jr first leading role, he stars as Jack Jericho, a man who picks up women. Who one day falls for a woman called Randy Jensen.

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CART, 1987. Film Reviews: The Pick-Up Artist. Variety (Archive: 1905-2000), 328(9), pp. 12.

Praises Downey Jr for his acting as this hip, cool man

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BYRGE, D., 1987. 'The Pick-Up Artist'. The Hollywood Reporter (Archive: 1930-2015), 298(48), pp. 3-3, 16.

Praises Downey for his blending of "Rough edges with smooth charm" (Byrge, 1987, p.3), he's "convincing and appealing in a desperate sort of way" (Byrge (1987, p.3)

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Collective personalities of these actors gives any actor who joins them new or anchors certain connotations about them.

Those connotations being those surrounding the youth of the time. hip, edgy, cheeky, cool.

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Blum, D (ed.) (1985) 'Hollywood's Brat Pack', New York Magazine, (June)

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Birth of the media curated collective group known as the 'Brat Pack'

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Birth of the media curated collective group known as the 'Brat Pack'

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Coming together of personality and group associations to create his star image

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Coming together of personality and group associations to create his star image

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'The style of Robert Downey Jr' (no date) Available at: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/411797959651110708/ (Accessed 8 November)

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A hip, charming, funny, cool, edgy, rising star

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'Robert Downey Jr' (no date) Available at: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/569283209118231054/ (Accessed 8 November 2023)

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Criminal Phase (Late 1990's- Early 2000's)

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Criminal Phase (Late 1990's- Early 2000's)

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Less Than Zero (1987) Directed by M. Kanievska [Feature Film]. Century City, Los Angeles: 20th Century Fox 

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Downey Jr plays Julian a university student who struggles with addiction.

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Wilde, J. (2003) 'More Than Skin Deep', The Guardian, 8 Nov. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2003/nov/08/features) (Accessed: 8 November 2023)

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Downey JR's interview with The Guardian reflecting on his Less than Zero character (2003)

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Downey JR's interview with The Guardian reflecting on his Less than Zero character (2003)

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"The character was an exaggeration of myself. Then things changed and, in some ways, I became an exaggeration of the character. That lasted far longer than it needed to last."

Wilde, J. (2003) 'More Than Skin Deep', The Guardian, 8 Nov. (Available at:8 November 2023)

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After a public battle with his demons Robert Downey Jr is back, starring in the film version of The Singing Detective. Jon Wilde meets the clued-up star

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This was the start of Downey Jr struggle with addiction. Which lead to multiple arrests and the start of a new star image, a criminal image 

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This was the start of Downey Jr struggle with addiction. Which lead to multiple arrests and the start of a new star image, a criminal image 

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'Robert Downey Jr Arrested Again' Available at: https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/robert-downey-jr-is-shown-in-a-mugshot-profile- (Accessed 8 November 2023)

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Angulo, S (2000) 'Robert Downey Jr. is arrested on drug charges' EW, 29 November. Available at: above (Accessed 8 November 2023)

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Entertainment Weekly: Robert Downey JR Arrested

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Entertainment Weekly: Robert Downey JR Arrested

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Robert Downey Jr. was arrested over the weekend while vacationing at a Palm Springs hotel. Tipped off by an anonymous 911 call placed last Saturday evening, police entered Downey's $500 a night suite at Merv Griffin's Resort Hotel & Givenchy Spa, where they found the 35 year old actor alone with cocaine and methamphetamines. Charged with drug possession and committing a felony while out on bail, Downey spent the night at the Palm Springs City Jail, then posted $15,000 bail on Sunday morning. If convicted, it's likely that Downey, who's scheduled for arraignment on Dec. 27, will be sent back to prison.

No stranger to jails, Downey was sentenced to three years in Corcoran State Prison in Corcoran, Calif., on drug and probation violation charges in August 1999. But Downey's luck changed when a judge freed him just three months ago on $5,000 bail. Once out, he kicked off his Hollywood comeback by signing on for a 10 episode stint on Fox's "Ally McBeal" (the fourth show airs Monday at 9 p.m.), as lawyer Larry Paul, Ally's (Calista Flockhart) new love interest. It's not clear whether Downey will return to the "Ally" set. On the big screen, Downey, a former Oscar nominee, is currently in Paramount's rerelease of the Curtis Hanson drama "Wonder Boys," for which he is considered a contender for this year's Best Supporting Actor award.

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Robert Downey Jr. is arrested on drug charges

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The ''Ally McBeal'' actor relapses with cocaine and methamphetamines

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BBC News (2000) 'Robert Downey Jr arrested'. 27 November. Available at:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/1043152.stm (Accessed 8 November 2023)

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BBC News (2000): Robert Downey JR Arrested

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BBC News (2000): Robert Downey JR Arrested

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Actor Robert Downey Junior is to appear in court on drugs charges just months after being released from prison, police have revealed.

Downey Jr, 35, was allegedly found in a hotel room with cocaine after police were tipped off by an anonymous caller.

"He was conscious and conversed with the officers," said Palm Springs police officer Ralph Landry. "He was very co-operative."

Downey Jr was bailed from police custody on Sunday for $15,000. He is set to appear in court within 30 days.

In August 1999, Downey was sentenced to three years in prison for violating his probation by missing drug tests.

He was released a year later on $5,000 bail.

He was given a part in TV show Ally McBeal a week later, and is also due to play Hamlet in a version directed by Mel Gibson.

The son of film director Robert Downey, he won an Oscar nomination for his role as Charlie Chaplin, in the comedian's 1992 screen biography.

His other credits include Less Than Zero, Natural Born Killers and Wonder Boys.

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bbc news world uk international foreign british online service

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BBC News | ENTERTAINMENT | Robert Downey Jr arrested

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Actor Robert Downey Jr is to appear in court on drugs charges three months after leaving jail, say police.

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Welkos, R. (1997) 'Actor Robert Downey Jr. Given 6-Month Jail Term' LA Times. 9 December. Available at:https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-dec-09-me-62

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LA Times (1997) Actor Robert Downey Jr. Given 6-Month Jail Term (Accessed 8 November 2023)

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LA Times (1997) Actor Robert Downey Jr. Given 6-Month Jail Term (Accessed 8 November 2023)

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Delivering a stern message to a celebrity who has grappled repeatedly with substance abuse, a Malibu judge Monday ordered actor Robert Downey Jr. to serve six months in jail for violating terms of his probation for a 1996 drug conviction.

Malibu Municipal Judge Lawrence Mira told Downey, 32, that the jail term he was imposing was intended "to let you know that when you make the choice for drugs, you're going to jail--it's that simple.

"I'm going to incarcerate you, and I'm going to incarcerate you in a way that's very unpleasant for you," the judge said. "I don't care who you are. What I care about is that there is a life to be saved from drugs."

Downey issued an emotional statement at the hearing, noting at one point that he had been addicted to drugs since the age of 8.

"I have no excuses," he told the judge. "I find myself defenseless."

The boyish actor, whose finely tuned performance as comedian Charlie Chaplin led to an Oscar nomination for the 1992 film "Chaplin," added:

"I don't know why . . . the severity and the fear . . . of you, of death and of not being able to live a life free of drugs has not been enough to make me not continually relapse . . . again. I really need to do this, even if I don't want to, I need to."

As he was led away in handcuffs to Los Angeles County Jail, Downey nodded and smiled to his supporters in the courtroom.

In addition to jail time, which could be reduced for good behavior, the judge ordered Downey to enroll in a residential treatment program upon his release from custody.

Downey has been in and out of courtrooms and treatment programs since the summer of 1996, when he was stopped for speeding. Police searching his pickup truck found cocaine, heroin and a pistol. His name made headlines again a month later, when he was found passed out in a child's bed in a neighbor's home. He was later arrested after leaving a recovery center.

Downey was sentenced to three years probation after pleading no contest to drug and weapons charges. He spent about three months in a live-in treatment program. His probation was revoked Oct. 17 after his drug counselor said he violated a court order by using drugs again. The actor could have been sent to jail for as long as three years or allowed to remain free in a rehabilitation program.

"What's ordinary about you is your drug use," the judge told the defendant. "What is exceptional about you is your willingness to endure so much pain and so much turmoil in your life just to use these drugs. You need to find out why, and I hope by the help of all the people that I got letters from today, that we'll be able to do that."

Despite his legal troubles, Downey's film career seems to have gone ahead full steam. He has several films scheduled to come out next year. The actor also is scheduled to appear in a still-untitled film for DreamWorks SKG.

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Actor Robert Downey Jr. Given 6-Month Jail Term

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Court: Judge sternly lectures movie star for violating probation in drug case. 'I have no excuses,' he responds.

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CNN (1999): Downey sentenced to prison for three years. 

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CNN (1999): Downey sentenced to prison for three years. 

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CNN (1999) 'Downey sentenced to prison for three years'. 5 August. Available at: http://edition.cnn.com/SHOWBIZ/Movies/9908/05/downey.sentence/ (Accessed 8 November 2023)

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Brennan, J, Helfand, D. (1996) 'A Troubled Actor's Rude Awakening' LA Times, 18 July. Available at:https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-07-18-me-25480-s

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LA Times (1996): A Troubled Actor's Rude Awakening (Accessed 8 November 2023)

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LA Times (1996): A Troubled Actor's Rude Awakening (Accessed 8 November 2023)

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Just hours after he was charged with one drug crime, actor Robert Downey Jr. was arrested on a new narcotics charge when he slipped unnoticed into a neighbor's Malibu home and passed out in a bedroom--only to be found by a stunned homeowner, authorities said Wednesday.

Downey, 31, was arrested late Tuesday night on suspicion of trespassing and being under the influence of a controlled substance, which authorities believed to be heroin. He spent the night in the jail ward at County- USC Medical Center and was released Wednesday morning on his own recognizance.

The Oscar-nominated actor's troubles set off alarm bells in Hollywood. Agents around town said they feared the arrests could hurt his career.

On Tuesday, Downey was charged with felony counts of cocaine and heroin possession in connection with a June 23 speeding arrest in Malibu. He also faces misdemeanor counts of driving under the influence and having a concealed weapon in his vehicle in that incident. He will be arraigned July 26 in that case.

Downey's latest misadventure appeared to stem from a mistake.

He wandered into the home of neighbors Bill and Lisa Curtis, who live 17 houses south of Downey on Broad Beach Road, a quiet two-lane street that runs along the coastline. Both homes are on the west side of the road and have similar-looking double wooden garage entrances.

Bill Curtis said his wife, who was home at the time, offered this account:

Downey entered the multileveled home through an open door and probably descended a circular staircase of about 70 stairs before finding a spare bedroom. There he laid his pants neatly over a chair and, wearing a T-shirt and boxer shorts, tucked himself into the sheets and fell asleep.

"He got real cozy," Bill Curtis said.

Curtis' wife noticed Downey sleeping when she entered the room, sometime around 9 p.m., thinking one of her children was playing a game. She called sheriff's deputies and a neighbor, who found Downey's identification. Paramedics revived the actor.

"He was sitting up--groggy, looking very white and gaunt," Curtis said. "At no time was he doing anything the least bit threatening."

Curtis said Downey even made funny faces at his daughter as he was led away by sheriff's deputies. "He still took out time to be entertaining," Curtis said.

Agents across town offered their own sad assessments.

"Two drug arrests in a row? Yes, this can seriously damage your future in this town," said one agent at United Talent Agency, which used to represent Downey. "There is too much young talent on the rise, too much competition. Nobody wants someone that's high-maintenance and it can be a detriment at his age."

Added an executive from the now-defunt Carolco Pictures, which was involved with the movie "Chaplin," a role that brought Downey an Oscar nomination and is widely considered to be his finest performance: "Poor Robert, he's rock-bottoming out."

Downey has bounced among three talent agencies in the last year. He left Creative Artists Agency last November for the Gersh Agency, leaving there and signing one week ago with International Creative Management Agency.

The movement, agents say, has mirrored the actor's turbulent personal life in recent months.

Downey is separated from his wife, model Deborah Falconer; the couple has a 3-year-old son.

He was most recently involved in two movies, filming simultaneously. He just wrapped his performance in New Line Cinema's upcoming "One Night Stand," in which he plays a young man dying of AIDS. The other film, "Hugo Pool," is being directed by Downey's father, Robert Downey Sr., known for such '70's cult classics as "Pound" and "Putney Swope."

*

Downey was resting at his home Wednesday and did not comment about his arrest. His attorney, Charles English, told a throng of reporters camped on the street that the actor was sorry for his actions and had apologized to the Curtis family.

"Mr. Downey has a problem," English said. "He's taking care of it. He appreciates everyone's concern. A treatment program is under way."

Bill Curtis said he hopes the district attorney's office does not file trespassing charges against Downey.

"This is a nice guy who has troubles," he said. "It was a very unfortunate incident, whatever caused the problem. We hope he gets better."

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Arrest: Robert Downey Jr., found asleep in a neighbor's home, is accused of trespassing and being under influence of drugs. Earlier in the day, he was charged with cocaine and heroin possession.

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‘Beyond the Blunderdome’ (1999) The Simpsons, series 11, episode 1, Fox, 26 September, 20:00

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The Simpsons (1999) portray's Downey JR as an Unhinged, Criminal Movie Star 

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The Simpsons (1999) portray's Downey JR as an Unhinged, Criminal Movie Star 

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Ricky Gervais introduces Downey JR as a criminal 

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Ricky Gervais introduces Downey JR as a criminal 

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start at 2:03

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Ricky Gervais's Nastiest Golden Globes Digs

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Together, his primary and secondary media form a new star image 

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Together, his primary and secondary media form a new star image 

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'Robert Downey Jr' (no date) Available at: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/569283209118231054/ (Accessed 8 November 2023)

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A fallen, unhinged actor who is a criminal and takes no responsibility for his actions

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Avengers Assemble (2012) Directed by J. Whedon. [Feature Film] Burbank, California: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

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Iron Man (2008) Directed by J. Favreau. [Feature Film] California: Paramount Picture Studios.

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Played Tony Stark AKA Iron Man. A sarcastic, quick witted, cool and easy attitude, genius, billionaire who manufactures weapons. He decides one day to leave the weapons manufacturing industry and become a hero called Iron Man.

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Avengers Assemble (2012) Directed by J. Whedon. [Feature Film] Burbank, California: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

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A man who struggled with addictions and who was known as a party man, goes through a traumatic event, an event which gives him a new perspective on life.

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A man who struggled with addictions and who was known as a party man, goes through a traumatic event (Prison), an event which gives him a new perspective on life.

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Iron Man (2008) Directed by J. Favreau. [Feature Film] California: Paramount Picture Studios.

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When he brought back from Afghanistan, he requests a cheeseburger and a press conference. At the press conference he eats the cheese burger and decides to changes his ways and become a better person.

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"Upon this visit to Burger King, Downey had a moment of clarity that he needed to change his life around before it was too late. He then gathered all of his drugs and tossed them into the ocean...Downey went to rehab and has been sober since 2003".  Hedash, K (2020) ' The Iron Man 1 Scene That Has A Hidden Robert Downey Jr. Meaning'. Screen Rant. Available at: https://screenrant.com/iron-man-1-movie-scene-robert-downey-jr-cheeseburger-meaning-explained/ (Accessed 8 November)

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The Cheeseburger is a symbol of change for both Stark and Downey Jr. It represents an epiphany , a moment of realisation which marks the start of their new approach to life

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The Cheeseburger is a symbol of change for both Stark and Downey Jr. It represents an epiphany , a moment of realisation which marks the start of their new approach to life

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The backstories and personalities of Robert Downey JR and Tony Stark are so similar they become intertwined with each other. Their Star Image is one, audiences can't tell where the personality of Downey JR ends and where Tony Stark begins

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InfinityStar (2022) Rdj being just like Tony Stark for 10 minutes. 1 February. Available at: above. (Accessed 8 November 2023)

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Video: RDJ being just like Tony Stark for 10 minutes

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Video: RDJ being just like Tony Stark for 10 minutes

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On the public stage (interviews, public appearances etc), Downey JR has the same personality as Tony Stark.

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Rdj being just like Tony Stark for 10 minutes

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Wired (2023) Robert Downey Jr. & Christopher Nolan Answer The Web's Most Searched Questions. 20 July. Available at: above (Accessed 8 November 2023)

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Downey JR mirrors Tony Starks iconography for a non MCU interview 

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Downey JR mirrors Tony Starks iconography for a non MCU interview 

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Robert Downey Jr. & Christopher Nolan Answer The Web's Most Searched Questions | WIRED

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Iron Man 3 (2013) Directed by S. Black [Feature Film] Burbank, California: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

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Gerbner's Cultivation Theory (1986): Gerbner, G., Gross, L., Morgan, M. and Signorelli, N. (1986) Living with Television: The Dynamics of the Cultivation Process, in J. Bryant and D. Zillman (eds) Perspectives on Media Effects . Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. G (Accessed: 2007)

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Gerbner's Cultivation Theory (1986): Gerbner, G., Gross, L., Morgan, M. and Signorelli, N. (1986) Living with Television: The Dynamics of the Cultivation Process, in J. Bryant and D. Zillman (eds) Perspectives on Media Effects . Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. G (Accessed: 2007)

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The idea that repeated exposure to the same ideology or iconography can affect an audiences perceptions.

The idea of Robert Downey Jr being like Tony Stark is repeated through his personality and movie appearances, led to audiences perceiving Downey Jr with the attitude of Stark

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Avengers Endgame (2019) Directed by A. Russo and J. Russo. [Feature Film] Burbank, California: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.

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For 10 years most of his films were related to his MCU character Tony Stark. This repetition of seeing Downey JR as Tony Stark in films or in advertising furthers his image of him being like Tony Stark

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Stephanie Arnela (2018) robert downey jr acting like tony stark for one minute and forty nine seconds. 17 June. Available at: above. (Accessed 8 November 2023)

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Video: robert downey jr acting like tony stark for one minute and forty nine seconds.

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Video: robert downey jr acting like tony stark for one minute and forty nine seconds.

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Highlights how he is conveying his star image and how the audience is recognising the traits of Stark in Downey JR star image

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robert downey jr acting like tony stark for one minute and forty nine seconds.

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Avengers Infinity War (2018) Directed by A. Russo and J. Russo. [Feature Film] Burbank, California: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.

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Downey Jr, R. (2022) 'Adventures in Bionics?'. [Instagram] 18 August. Available at: above (Accessed 8 November 2023)

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Downey Jr wears glasses which are very much in the style of Tony Stark in his personal life

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Downey Jr wears glasses which are very much in the style of Tony Stark in his personal life

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Robert Downey Jr. on Instagram: "Adventures in Bionics? Tune in
tomorrow to see highlights from my recent trip to Boston."

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606K likes, 1,855 comments - robertdowneyjr on August 18, 2022: "Adventures in Bionics? Tune in
tomorrow to see highlights from my recent trip to Boston."

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View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Robert Downey Jr. (@robertdowneyjr)

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Captain America Civil War (2016) Spiderman Homecoming (2017) Avengers Infinity War (2018) Avengers Endgame (2019)

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In the films Tony Stark acts as a father figure for Peter Parker

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In the films Tony Stark acts as a father figure for Peter Parker

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FilMonger (2018) Tom Holland and Robert Downey Jr. Funniest and Best Father/Son Moments | Try Not To Laugh 2018. 1 June. Available at: above 

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In real life Robert Downey Jr acts as a father figure for Tom Holland in the public sphere

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In real life Robert Downey Jr acts as a father figure for Tom Holland in the public sphere

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(Accessed 8 November)

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Tom Holland and Robert Downey Jr. Funniest and Best Father/Son Moments | Try Not To Laugh 2018

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Audiences now recognised this merger of persona's and recognise this new star image, a star image what reflects and embodies Tony Stark

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Audiences now recognised this merger of persona's and recognise this new star image, a star image what reflects and embodies Tony Stark

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Timo (2021) Robert Downey Jr being the COOLEST MAN ON THE PLANET for 11 minutes!. 16 February. Available at: above. (Accessed 8 November 2023)

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Fan compilations, a lot of clips refer to him being Iron Man

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Fan compilations, a lot of clips refer to him being Iron Man

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Robert Downey Jr being the COOLEST MAN ON THE PLANET for 11 minutes!

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Agronsky (2019) the best of: Robert Downey Jr. 31 July. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89vuPp2y6R0&t=5s (Accessed 8 November 2023)

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Fan compilations: most of the "Best of" moments are MCU Iron Man related.

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Fan compilations: most of the "Best of" moments are MCU Iron Man related.

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JX_Wafflez (2020) 'Happy birthday to the one and only iron man' [Reddit]. Available at: above. (Accessed 8 November 2023)

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Fans celebrate Downey JR birthday by calling him Iron Man

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Fans celebrate Downey JR birthday by calling him Iron Man

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Happy birthday to the one and only iron man

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13.0k votes, 136 comments. 2.9m members in the marvelmemes community. Welcome to r/marvelmemes: The home of Marvel memes on Reddit!

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Happy birthday to the one and only iron man
by u/Jx_Wafflez in marvelmemes

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How Downey himself helped create his star image, through his own movies, books, statements, etc

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How the Media interpreted his image

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People Magazine (2000) 'Can He Save Himself?' December 2000.

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People Magazine (1997) 'Touched By Angels'. December 1997.

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highlighted as a STAR BEHIND BARS

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juxtaposition of "Smiling" and "Prison", paints Downey JR as someone who is reckless as they don't care they are in prison or the consequence.

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juxtaposition of "Smiling" and "Prison", paints Downey JR as someone who is reckless as they don't care they are in prison or the consequence.

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Sassy (1989) 'Our First Cover Boy, Robert Downey, Jr'. July 1989.

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Highlights the association's with his star image. Made through his filmography, interviews and the Brat Pack. Creates the idea that he is this hip, cool, youthful, heartthrob, cheeky man

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Highlights the association's with his star image. Made through his filmography, interviews and the Brat Pack. Creates the idea that he is this hip, cool, youthful, heartthrob, cheeky man

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'Robert Downey Jr pledges to clean up Earth' (2019). Available at:

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Eco activist and Role model (2019- Present)

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Eco activist and Role model (2019- Present)

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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2019/06/05/robert-downey-jr-aims-clean-planet-entirely-using-robotics-technology/ (Accessed 8 November 2020)

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How Downey himself helped create his star image, through his own movies, books, statements, etc

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Times Magazine (2008) 'Person of the Year', 2008. Available at: above (Accessed 8 November 2023)

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Times Magazine name Robert Downey Jr as one of the top 100 most influential people (2008)

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Times Magazine name Robert Downey Jr as one of the top 100 most influential people (2008)

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Downey Jr's role as Tony Stark helped him reach a new level of affluence, especially in the younger generations. Stark had great respect within the Marvel Universe and the character was a natural leader who inspired many.

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In one of the craziest elections in American history, Barack Obama overcame a lack of experience, a funny name, two candidates who are political institutions and the racial divide to become the 44th President of the United States

Andrew Macpherson / jbgphoto.com

The only thing Hollywood loves more than watching somebody fall is watching the same person get back up again. It doesn't happen very often. But no one in recent years has fallen and risen more dramatically than Downey, who came back from drug addiction and a stint in jail to lead this summer's Iron Man to some serious heavy metal at the box office — more than half a billion dollars worldwide. Eyebrow-raising too was his turn as an Australian actor playing a black actor in the R-rated comedy Tropic Thunder. Next year Downey will attempt to breathe new life into Sherlock Holmes. After what he's been through, it should be elementary.

— Lev Grossman

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The only thing Hollywood loves more than watching somebody fall is watching the same person get back up again. It doesn't happen very often. But no one in recent years has fallen and risen more...

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How the Media interpreted his image

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Baudrillard and his book Simulacra and Simulation (1994) highlights how the boundaries between the real world and fiction world have become blurred. Applying this to Downey Jr, his repetitive role as Tony Stark in the MCU has lead to a blurring of boundaries in real life. People see Downey JR as Stark, people believe that Downey JR carries all the same personality and characteristic traits of Stark. People can no longer recognise where the personalities and characteristics of Downey JR ends and where Stark begins.

Baudrillard, J. (1994). Simulacra and Simulation (S. Glaser, Trans.). University of Michigan Press

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According to Jenkins (2013) Fans look to celebrities to see how to live their own lives 

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According to Jenkins (2013) Fans look to celebrities to see how to live their own lives 

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Therefore Downey Jr has harnessed his influential through embodying Stark and creating a new hybrid star image. Now in his post iron man era, he is growing and expanding the star image and advancing the interests and celebritiy qualities of himself, with advanced interest's in the environment, technology and becoming a role model for society, a role model who values family and helping others

Jenkins, H. (2013) Textual poachers : television fans and participatory culture. Updated twentieth anniversary edition. Routledge. Available at: https://search-ebscohost-com.liverpool.idm.oclc.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=cat00003a&AN=lvp.b4275714&site=eds-live&scope=site (Accessed: 16 March 2022).

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Captain America Civil War (2016) Directed by A. Russo and J. Russo. [Feature Film] Burbank, California: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.

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In Captain America Civil War (2016), Stark gifts an advanced suit to a child.

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In Captain America Civil War (2016), Stark gifts an advanced suit to a child.

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ABC News (2015) Iron Man, Iron Boy: New Arm Prosthetic From Robert Downey Jr. 14 March. Available at: above (Accessed 8 November 2023)

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Downey Jr gifts an iron man esk bionic arm to a child, emphasising how he embodying the traits of Tony Stark and applying them in the real world under his own personal star image

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Iron Man, Iron Boy: New Arm Prosthetic From Robert Downey Jr.

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Downey Jr, R (2022) 'It’s #FutureTechFriday, folks!' [Instagram] 19 August. Available at: above. (Accessed 8 November 2023)

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Downey Jr goes to MIT to promote their work in bionic technology. This fits with Downey JR new star image narrative as this technology is the future of humanity, by Downey Jr backing and publicising this new technology, he conveying Stark traits in his own 'new era' life, continuing the notion that Downey Jr star image builds upon the character of Stark and not reinvent the image in a way what feels like a departure from the character. This for the public creates the idea that Downey Jr wants to be the spokesperson for technology which protects and advances the world in positive ways (like how he was in the MCU). Showing how he wants to make a positive change with his influence.

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Robert Downey Jr. on Instagram: "It’s #FutureTechFriday, folks! And I recently had the honor of joining the Executive Advisory Board for the K. Lisa Yang Bionics Center at MIT. Hugh Herr and his team are on a noble quest to change humanity through augmentation and ground-breaking technology. Join as I explore @hugh.herr’s story of facing adversity head on. Click the link in my bio to learn more about the extraordinary work happening in the @mitbiomechatronics lab!"

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387K likes, 2,003 comments - robertdowneyjr on August 19, 2022: "It’s #FutureTechFriday, folks! And I recently had the honor of joining the Executive Advisory B..."

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View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Robert Downey Jr. (@robertdowneyjr)

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Recently Downey JR has posted a number of family oriented posts on his Instagram feed

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Recently Downey JR has posted a number of family oriented posts on his Instagram feed

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This shows what Downey Jr values in his life. As Instagram is a key factor in a stars image today as it allows the public access to a direct communication channel with a celebrity. What a celebrity posts constructs what their values are, by Downey Jr posting frequently about his family, the star image narrative becomes dominated by Downey Jr's family values.

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Downey Jr, R. (2023) 'Thanks Matthew Rhys for the anniversary charter on theRarebit@moveablefeastny' [Instagram]. 31 August. Available at: above.(Accessed8Nov) 

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Downey Jr shares a video of his anniversary holiday with his wife. The video has wholesome music along with some intimate and humours moments. The video reflects his values of wanting to be a good, thoughtful, romantic husband who values his wife.

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Robert Downey Jr. on Instagram: "Thanks Matthew Rhys for the anniversary charter on the Rarebit @moveablefeastny . High recommend. The less than helpful first mate Paul Bettany…no comment."

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249K likes, 1,005 comments - robertdowneyjr on August 31, 2023: "Thanks Matthew Rhys for the anniversary charter on the Rarebit @moveablefeastny . High recommend...."

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View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Robert Downey Jr. (@robertdowneyjr)

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Downey Jr, R. (2022) 'Things we do for work and our kids' [Instagram] 29 October. Available at: above (Accessed 8 November 2023)

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Downey Jr allows his kids to shave his hair off for his new movie in this video. This shows that Downey jr is a fun father, who allows his kids to be involved in his life. Dyer says that by displaying qualities of yourself which are ordinary and extraordinary can help you seem more relatable. Downey Jr is starring in a new movie that to the public is extraordinary, his kids shaving his head is ordinary, this makes him seem more relatable and audiences will value his actions and ideologies more and therefore the aspiration of conveying a good father role model is possible as Dyer states that celebrities are representations of ideologies and that audiences want to be like celebrities who are ordinary and extraordinary.

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The things we do for our work… and our kids. #Sympathizer set ready.

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View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Robert Downey Jr. (@robertdowneyjr)

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Dolittle (2020) Directed by S. Gaghan [Feature Film] New York. Universal Pictures

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Robert Downey Jr stars in a movie produced by his wife. Showing Downey Jr's commitment to his wife and how much he believes and supports her.

Dolittle is a film, what revolves around a vet who has a sanctuary for animals. Dolittle cares and protects these animals and offers them safety in his sanctuary.

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Footprint Coalition is a company set up by Downey jr which invests in start up companies what are focused on sustainability and sustainable technology.

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Footprint Coalition (2023) Impact Report Highlights. Available at: above (Accessed 8 November 2023)

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They have a remit to "Accelerate the adoption of technologies that will aid in climate mitigation, human adaptation, and planetary restoration". and "To create and promote new solutions to propel humanity forward, while reducing our impact on the planet we call home". through investments in sustainable companies and by curating original content. They also hope to educate the public and mobilise the public opinion.

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Starostinetskaya,A (2023) 'Robert Downey Jr.'s Favorite Vegan Steak Makes American Steakhouse Debut' Vegnews, 3 August. Available at: above.

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Robert Downey Jr.'s Favorite Vegan Steak Makes American Steakhouse Debut. A steak from a company which has an investment from Footprint Coalition

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Robert Downey Jr.'s Favorite Vegan Steak Makes American Steakhouse Debut. A steak from a company which has an investment from Footprint Coalition

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(Accessed 8 November 2023)

Jenkins argues that people textual poach from a star, which means take aspects of a stars image and applies it to their own life. By Downey JR promoting this Vegan Steak, he is using his star power to encourage people to go vegan. He also choose a steak, a very stereotypical patriotic American dish, by promoting a dish which juxtaposes the traditional values of a steak (and a steaks symbolic meaning) with a new twist, its vegan, he's communicating that he wants to have a national impact and wants to change America and their way's of living.

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Classic steakhouses are typically not the first place you'd think to go for vegan food. Or at least not anything more than a side of steamed broccoli or unbuttered potatoes. And most likely not in Florida. However, times are changing.

This week, vegan steak made by Chunk Foods landed on the menu at Charley's Steak House in Orlando, FL-marking a milestone moment for the steakhouse as the first establishment of its kind to introduce a plant-based steak.

Chunk Foods

"This milestone is incredibly significant for Chunk, and for the plant-based industry as a whole," Amos Golan, Chunk Founder and CEO, tells VegNews. "Chunk is the first plant-based brand ever to have its product added as a regular menu item in a traditional and well-respected steakhouse chain in the US."

"Chunk is listed on the same menu as other premium cuts of beef thanks to its exquisite culinary performance, great taste and texture, clean ingredient list, and impressive nutritional profile."

Charley's Steak House is part of Talk of the Town Restaurant Group, which operates six properties across Florida, including other meat-centric restaurants FishBones, Texas Cattle Company, and Vito's Chop House.

Vegan steak at the center of the plate

Originally from Israel, the innovative food-tech startup recently raised an impressive $15 million in seed funding, in a round that included Robert Downey Jr.'s venture capital firm, FootPrint Coalition.

Chunk Foods

Harnessing the power of fermentation, Chunk Foods develops products that capture all of the desirable qualities of traditional steaks using a base of cultured soy and wheat. To make the perfect vegan steak, Golan explains, was quite challenging.

"To be blunt, the challenges we faced in creating a plant-based steak were substantial," Golan says. "Texture and flavor were key, as well as replicating the mouthfeel and taste of a high-quality steak was no easy task."

"It took years of development to refine our product, and it's something we continue to do because we refuse to settle for anything but the absolute best," he says. "Our steaks have a meaty texture and bite, a juicy mouthfeel and unmistakable umami flavors."

High in protein, low in salt, and low in fat, Chunk's steaks are incredibly versatile, with the ability to be pan-seared, basted, grilled, smoked, stewed, or even braised. They are also made without additives, thickeners, or binders.

Golan believes that this partnership with Talk of the Town signifies that there remains a vast untapped potential in the plant-based meat industry, which he says has stagnated over the last couple of years.

Chunk Foods

"Steakhouses in the United States sell over $14 billion of steak, and tapping into what was previously an unattainable market marks a tremendous step in the right direction, making plant-based eating accessible and desirable to more Americans and marking Chunk as an industry leader," Golan says.

On the menu at Charley's

On the menu at Charley's, the vegan steak's name is a mouthful: "F U Filet Mignon-Freaking Unbelievable Plant-Based by Chunk." At $69, the 6-ounce vegan steak is priced somewhere in the middle of Charly's animal-derived meat options-equal to a larger 18-ounce Prime New York Strip Steak but cheaper than the $12 per ounce Wagyu Filet Mignon.

At Charley's, the vegan steaks get the royal treatment with a dry spice rub and a sear on the restaurant's open flame. The hope here, Golan says, is for Chunk to serve as "a potential gateway" to plant-based meats for customers.

Chunk Foods

It also allows the steakhouse to refresh its offerings and cater to younger demographics that are consistently looking to lower their environmental footprint by reducing their animal meat intake.

"We are reshaping the steakhouse experience. At our core, we serve the finest steaks and seafood and have been searching for over 15 years for a plant-based option that meets our standards," Seth Miller, Vice President/Chief Operating Officer of Talk of the Town, said in a statement.

"We are excited to introduce our customers to Chunk steak," Miller said. "This partnership provides a solution that aligns with our quality expectations for every item we serve. If it's not the best, we won't serve it."

With its partnership with Talk of the Town underway, Golan is looking to take a bite out of a burgeoning market for vegan steak, projected to double its current value from $598.6 million to $1.13 billion by 2033, according to Future Market Insights.

Outside of Charley's, the company is working to expand the presence of Chunk's steaks, filets, and pulled meats in the New York City metro area, Los Angeles, and Florida.

Chunk Foods

A number of restaurants currently offer Chunks vegan meats, including Willow and Delice & Sarrasin in Manhattan, as well as the Butcher's Daughter in Williamsburg and West Hollywood, and De Buena Planta in Silver Lake.

The company is also making an appearance at vegan festival Vegandale in NYC next month where it will be handing out free samples of its history-making vegan meats.

For the latest vegan news, read:

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Robert Downey Jr.'s Favorite Vegan Steak Makes American Steakhouse Debut

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Charley's Steak House just became the first American steakhouse to add a plant-based steak, made by Chunk Foods, to its menu.

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Downey Jr, R, Kropa, R. (2021) Downstream [podcast] 15 July. Available at: above (Accessed 8 November 2023)

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Downstream, a Podcast by Footprint Coalition 

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Downstream, a Podcast by Footprint Coalition 

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A podcast hosted by Downey JR, which explores environmental issues created by our industrial footprint, each episode explores a particular issue with an expert guiding them through it

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Footprint Coalition's "Downstream Channel" is an exploration of the environmental challenges created by our industrial footprint led by Robert Downey Jr. and his co-host and Footprint Managing Director, Rachel Kropa.

Together, they'll talk through some of the most pressing environmental issues facing the planet and enlist a panel of experts (including executives and founders from some of Footprint Coalition Ventures' portfolio companies) who are finding ways for us to walk a little lighter on the world's stage.

Each episode includes a brief but informative overview of issues, a mystery box containing surprises related to the theme of the week, quotes to encapsulate the topics up for discussion and featured interviews with fascinating guests.

Footprint Coalition's "Downstream Channel" is an exploration of the environmental challenges created by our industrial footprint led by Robert Downey Jr. and his co-host and Footprint Managing Director, Rachel Kropa.

Together, they'll talk through some of the most pressing environmental issues facing the planet and enlist a panel of experts (including executives and founders from some of Footprint Coalition Ventures' portfolio companies) who are finding ways for us to walk a little lighter on the world's stage.

Each episode includes a brief but informative overview of issues, a mystery box containing surprises related to the theme of the week, quotes to encapsulate the topics up for discussion and featured interviews with fascinating guests.

Hoping this will resume?

I was really enjoying this, although episode release schedule was weird...a good focus though, come back?

Wish there was more

I love this podcast. Not only do I live the awesomeness of the topics about the environment but I love the groups of people out there that is trying to save Earth. I love researching all these new company's out there cause let's be honest I probably wouldn't have know it was out there or what to even look for. Also my resources could be limited in finding these amazing companies! Anyways I hope this pod cast comes back but sadly like any trend over time it fades away.

Happy to have stumbled upon this...

I'm a few episodes in and already taking an introspective look at my carelessness behavior - my daily waste output...WOW, embarrassing. I've dabbled with vegetarian/vegan eating, but more encouraged to take a firmer lifestyle change. Also have to say, love the 'Jarvis'-like character who pops in with definitions...helps those of us with novice level knowledge of science feel welcome. Thank you for getting this info out there, we can all do better.

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‎FootPrint Coalition's Downstream Channel on Apple Podcasts

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Footprint Coalition's "Downstream Channel" is an exploration of the environmental challenges created by our industrial footprint led by Robert Downey Jr. and his co-host and Footprint Managing Director, Rachel Kropa. Together, they'll talk through some of the most pressing environmental issues faci...

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Footprint Coalition (no date) Environmentally Friendly Toilet Paper using Bamboo from Cloud Paper. no date. Available at: above. (Accessed 8 November 2023)

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Downey Jr promotes Footprint Coalitions investment in the company Cloud Paper 

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Downey Jr promotes Footprint Coalitions investment in the company Cloud Paper 

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Downey Jr promotes the Company Cloud paper and their bamboo toilet paper. Here Downey Jr educates the public about the positive effects of moving from a tree based toilet paper to a bamboo based toilet paper. He hoping that his star power will open peoples eyes to the environmental impact of toilet paper and how by using bamboo the world will become a greener place.

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Environmentally Friendly Toilet Paper using Bamboo from Cloud Paper

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Environmentally Friendly Toilet Paper using Bamboo from Cloud Paper

Presented by Robert Downey Jr., Footprint Coalition and Footprint Coalition Ventures


GET INVOLVED AT footprintcoalition.com



©Footprint Coalition Ventures

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Footprint Coalition (no date) 'Portfolio News'. Available at: https://www.footprintcoalition.com/press (Accessed 8 November 2023)

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Promoted on Footprint Coalitions website

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Promoted on Footprint Coalitions website

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A production set up by Downey Jr and his Wife, Susan Downey. Their recent productions reflect Robert Downey Jr newest star image phase as they all have similar themes, like the environment, which reflect his current star image and lifestyle values.

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Downeys Dream Cars (2023) Team Downey. Available at: HBO Max. (Accessed 8 November 2023)  

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This series focuses on converting Downeys classic cars from their original petrol systems to an all green electrical system, a car of the past reengineered for the future. This conforms with Downeys new green, role model image as he is trying to encourage the classic car audience to reduce their footprint and conform their cars to a good environmental standard

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Sweet Tooth (2021-2023) Team Downey. Available at: Netflix. (Accessed 8 November 2023)

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A TV series produced by Team Downey which in set in world where most of the population have died to a virus, a virus which resulted in a new hybrid species, half human half animal. The series has a deeper meaning to it, it represents how we treat our planet, our animals and each other and how we should be protecting and living harmoniously with everyone on this planet. This message fits with the overall narrative Downey has been presenting over the last few years

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'Robert Downey Jr.' (2022). Available at: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CcqMT8_F74j/ (Accessed 8 November 2023)

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Robert Downey Jr: a rolemodel for society

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Robert Downey Jr: a rolemodel for society

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He wants to be seen as a aspirational role model, whether that's for fathers or husbands or as a citizen of the world. He wants to be seen as a man who fights for a better greener world and a world where people can live their best possible lives.

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Cook, A. (Amy E.) (2018) Building character : the art and science of casting / Amy Cook. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.9751301.

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Cook, A. (Amy E.) (2018) Building character : the art and science of casting / Amy Cook. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.9751301.

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Cook (2018, p.124) believes that with the passage of time Americans will always love a redemption story. She mentions that Downey JR was an example of someone who after a period of time came back to the spotlight and was welcomed back with mainly open arms, as evident with the film Iron Man (2008)

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This leads to audiences primarily forgetting about Downey JR's past and replacing their memories and star image qualities with ones associated with Tony Stark. Changing audiences notion of Downey JR's star image

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Williams, M (2008) 'Robert Downey Jr: return of the hero'. The Telegraph. 26 April. Available at: above (Accessed 8 November)

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The headline suggests that Downey has bounced back heroically. The idea they have called him a returning hero suggests that the criminal phase of Downey jr has been separated and wiped from his public narrative. We should now always think of him as a hero, no matter the point in time

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After 20 years of drink, drugs, 'unthinkably surreal' debauchery and spells in prison and rehab, Robert Downey Jr seems finally to have conquered his addictions. With Hollywood's confidence in him restored, he is now carrying the $186 million blockbuster, Iron Man. On the eve of its release, he talks to Murphy Williams

At long last, Hollywood's most captivating hellraiser and ex-convict - Robert Downey Jr - is 'on a run where I can do no wrong'. He has several wildly differing films on the go, of which the first, Iron Man, is a $186 million, surefire blockbuster that will doubtlessly see Downey, playing Marvel Comics' wealthiest and wittiest superhero, reproduced as a mass-market plastic doll. Another hot ticket is The Soloist, a less rock'n'roll adaptation from Joe Wright, the director of Atonement, in which he will appear alongside Oscar-winner Jamie Foxx.

Seven years after his release from Corcoran State Penitentiary, Downey is once again a going concern. When Steven Spielberg visited Wright's set recently, Downey was taken aback, despite the 60 or so films he has made: 'I couldn't believe it. He's over by the monitors, and I'm like "Jesus Christ, there he is" and he talks to me about a couple of things, and then he leaves the set and I'm like "God darn it!" I've only been waiting 25 years to have one of those moments.'

'It's all so new to me,' Downey, 43, says with the sparkle of someone half his age. 'I walk by studio heads and they actually look and put their hand out now, like maybe I should be on their radar. I used to be so pissed off, like, "I just did a movie for that guy and he walked past me", not because of my behaviour but because I was never in anything that was of any particular consequence to their day-to-day business, whereas now they're like I'm one of their heavy hitters.'

Downey's rare, instinctive gift for inhabiting a character has earned him many awards and superlatives since he starred in Less Than Zero at the age of 21. He is a director's darling: Robert Altman, who directed him in Short Cuts and The Gingerbread Man, described him as 'America's best actor. I don't know anybody better.' 'He is his own unique specimen,' Richard Linklater, who directed him in A Scanner Darkly (2006), said. 'One human body is almost not a large enough vessel for all he contains.' Sir Richard Attenborough, who chose him to play the lead in Chaplin, said in 1992, 'Robert is now Tom Cruise and a great romantic character actor in one. If he chooses his projects right, the world will be his oyster.'

Within a decade of that, Downey was more likely to be seen in prison-issue orange jumpsuits on court television than in costume. He was, as he put it, 'the poster boy for pharmaceutical mismanagement'. His name had become a tragic byword for the impact of drugs on a brilliant career. Few could have anticipated such a turnaround, but in the past five years, after five previous years of hopeless, humiliatingly public run-ins with the law, Downey has found another way that suits him: Pilates, Eastern philosophy, meditation and Wing Chun Kung Fu.

The road to recovery really began in 2003, when Downey met his wife-to-be, the producer Susan Levin, on the set of Gothica. With her, he said, he could enjoy monogamy for the first time: 'She was really grounded, a hard worker, and really motivated.' Most importantly, she wouldn't marry him unless he gave up drugs. A tattoo on one shoulder reads 'Susie Q', in tribute; the other, 'Indio', the name of his 14-year-old son. Things began to look up: he carried more films than ever, 'accepting half as much and working twice as hard', and in 2005 released the wistful, wordy, jazzy album he had always talked about.

Film by film, he displayed an enriched persona and became less of an insurance liability. By the time Zodiac came out last year, he had proved that he 'no longer had to deal with the embarrassment of imperfection'. Nevertheless, he noted, when he walked into a hotel, 'people still don't know whether to help me make a shiatsu appointment or wrestle me to the ground'.

'Well, it's like this,' he says of his recent achievements, 'job one is get out of the gutter. Job two is to be able to look at the end of a year of work and not feel like I was overworked and underpaid and I don't like what I see. It took me 25 years of having the wrong thing overshadow my original intentions when I came out here. My victory has been so hard won. It's hard to get out of the barrel. It's slippery around the edges and people are happy to see you fall back in. Now that ain't my story any more, so I can scoff at somebody else's demise and be one of those pigs at the Colosseum going, "Kill him!".'

Downey's youthful brightness is his saving grace, and most probably the reason he looks so wholesome, unscarred by his tribulations, and more swooningly handsome than ever. If, as Downey claims now, he 'wasn't happy from the time Chaplin came out until last year', he certainly never showed it. In countless front-cover profiles and chat-show appearances, he came across as the most engaging and exuberant bad boy of Hollywood. He is heavenly to meet: he smiles warmly in greeting, says 'Thanks, honey' to praise, and his conversation is endearingly bouncy; he is forever searching for the joke in his answers.

Downey is adored in the Hollywood community. Jodie Foster, who directed him in Home for the Holidays in 1995, said, 'It's not just because he has great talent. People who know him really feel for him.' Gwyneth Paltrow agreed to play Pepper Potts, the love interest in Iron Man, largely because of Downey: 'He tries all this great stuff and it just feels very electric. It feels new. You don't feel like you're trudging through your day.'

Nowadays, Downey has the relaxed air of success about him rather than the nervous restlessness often described. Family life couldn't be better: 'I'm in a happy relationship, me and my ex are on really good terms, my kid and I are in a good spot.' The ex is the singer and former model Deborah Falconer, the mother of Indio.

Downey smiles at his mention: 'If you heard the shit that comes out of my mouth while I'm driving this minivan around with my teenager and his friends. I'm standing there in my leather jacket squinting at them when I drop them off and they're like, "RDJ is watching", and they're worried, because I'm not just the square dad. I know exactly what they're thinking, and I don't approve.' He is tickled by the irony of his words: 'Kids these days.'

Whatever his own state, Downey was always keen to give his son security, having himself experienced a 'bohème pressurefest' as a child. Robert Downey Sr was a maverick workaholic filmmaker who moved his actress wife Elsie, elder daughter Allyson - once a cocaine addict and now a fledgling filmmaker - and Robert Jr from Greenwich Village to Connecticut to Paris to Woodstock to London to Los Angeles. They were 'beatniks, gipsies, superheroes and big mismanagers of money and opportunities' who raised him, according to one psychiatrist, like wolves.

The director Hal Ashby and the activist Abbie Hoffman would drop in as dailies were screened on a sheet in the living-room. Downey Sr cast his five-year-old son as a dog in Pound because it was easier than getting a baby-sitter. 'I understood acting as "That's what we do here",' Downey has said. 'We do that and then we go eat pizza, or bowl, or see a French double bill.' Downey, his father recalls, was playing Thelonious Monk tunes on the piano at seven. In the Downey household, marijuana 'was a staple, like rice'.

Famously, Downey Sr passed his son a joint at the age of eight at a party. 'We thought it would be hypocritical to not have our kids participate in marijuana and stuff like that,' he said in 1992. Cocaine was around, too. 'When my dad and I would do drugs together,' Downey explained in 1988, 'it was like him trying to express his love for me in the only way he knew how.' Downey Sr is in recovery now (as is Downey's mother) and feels 'tremendous guilt' about his son. Downey has since defended his father. 'He got a shitty deal... Most of the East Coast's underground elite were doing the same with their kids.'

His parents divorced when he was 13; the family moved to Los Angeles, where Downey stood out at Santa Monica High. 'I had this bad-boy-from-New York vibe going, dressed like a punk rocker with spiky hair,' he remembers now. 'I was anything but a badass, but compared to California standards of blond hair and Opie shorts and everything's like "melloooow", I seemed edgy. I was listening to the Clash and Black Flag because I was told I should, but I really wanted to listen to Phil Collins and Michael Jackson - all the stuff I still like to nowadays.

'At school, there were a couple of girls from jazz who dressed hip and smoked clove cigarettes, and really all I wanted to do was maintain my ability to be welcome around them, and hope they wouldn't mind the fact that I was singing at the mall in the holidays or that I was in a choral competition singing Schubert; cheesy stuff that didn't fit with the image. Because essentially I was a theatre brat.'

At 17 Downey dropped out, went back East and 'acted like I had some theatre experience, which I really got only from doing a play or two in high school. That's how I started my little half-assed career.'

In Manhattan he auditioned, did regional theatre, bused tables and worked as a living statue at the downtown club area. Alcohol, cocaine and mushrooms were all part of the fun. Within a year, in 1984, Downey fell for the Sex and the City actress Sarah Jessica Parker on the set of Firstborn, his first film, and they began a seven-year relationship. She found him 'very mercurial and odd, but also completely open'. He joined the cast of Saturday Night Live in 1985, and won his first lead role in The Pick-Up Artist in 1987.

Downey and Parker moved to a pink house in LA, coincidentally built for Charlie Chaplin, where he was in demand and taking to the high life. He says, 'If ever someone found the transition to boy king an easy one, it was me. I was way into clothes, way into toys.' The actor James Woods nicknamed him Binky, because he wore 'more silk than it took to land the troops at Normandy'. A string of roles in teenage fluff such as Weird Science and Back to School preceded Less Than Zero, the adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis's nihilistic novel about dysfunctional, pampered LA youth.

Downey imbued the desperate crack addict Julian with beguiling depth and rawness, but it was a turning point. 'Until that movie,' he said, 'I took my drugs after work and on the weekends. That changed on Less Than Zero. The role was like the ghost of Christmas Future. I became an exaggeration of the character.' Soon after completing the film, Downey went into rehab. His cocaine abuse, he later told Playboy magazine, 'was just confounding' for Parker and was their eventual undoing. 'Without her,' his father told People magazine, 'Robert would go at 100 miles an hour into a brick wall.'

During one press tour, Downey went down to the lobby for cigarettes and disappeared for four days. His friend Josh Richman described their debauchery around this time as 'unthinkable and grandiosely surreal'. In 1989 his manager, Loree Rodkin, suggested that Parker, his family and a drug counsellor confront Downey about his abuse in the first of many interventions.

'This little Brat Pack gadfly', as Sir Richard Attenborough called him, must have felt the days of hearing that he was 'the best thing in a lot of bad films' were over when he beat Robin Williams, Dustin Hoffman and Billy Crystal to the part of Chaplin in Attenborough's 1992 glossy biopic. Having been 'pretty lazy' in previous films, Downey jumped hurdles to play Chaplin, mastering the famous posture and walk, learning to be funny without opening his mouth, to play tennis and violin left-handed, to speak with both a cockney and a refined English accent, all while ageing seven decades.

Even Chaplin's daughter Geraldine gushed that Downey had revived the legend's grace and spirit: 'To watch him still gives me a very, very weird feeling.' When Downey missed out on the best actor Oscar to Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman, many felt he had been cheated, including him.

'It was really anti-climactic,' he says now, splayed on the sofa before me. 'Patrick Swayze had done Ghost and then he went and did this great movie called City of Joy by Roland Joffé. I'd see him around and he'd be like, "How's it going, man?" and I'd be like, "F*** him!" Natural Born Killers was Woody [Harrelson]'s movie and then he went on and did Larry Flynt. I thought "F*** him" about everybody because I started comparing myself to my peers.

"I don't want to pooh-pooh the jobs I did in all those years because there was some merit in them but I just felt like I made such a big effort for a 26-year-old for that movie that the fact that things kinda got quiet... but it's just the way things were - '92 was a slow year for me and a strong one for some other guys.'

That year he married Deborah Falconer, whom he had met six weeks before, and bought a large house in Malibu. After Chaplin wrapped, Downey dug a hole in his garden and, in an attempt to cast off his self-destructive urges, buried his costumes from Less Than Zero. Indio was born in 1993. 'All these things should have grounded me,' he says, 'but I thought, "Hey, let's party!" and that clearly didn't pan out very well.'

He is laughing as he talks, but by 1994 he was guzzling entire bottles of hard liquor at a time, while at various stages throughout the Nineties he somehow persuaded journalists that he was clean. The salaries from the films he was choosing, among them Restoration and Richard III, 'barely covered three months of dry-cleaning expenses'. Through it all, he turned up for work on time and always gave an immaculately nuanced performance (he often 'phoned them in' as he described it).

After 'unabashedly partying to my f***ing heart's content for 10 years', Downey tried crack and heroin for the first time in 1995. The 'lovable tornado', as he put it, was out of control. 'It's nobody's fault. It's just the truth, I'm a freak.' Forty-five minutes, he claimed, was all it took to race out of his house or hotel, score drugs, get high, and return home. In between stints in rehab, he didn't stop working, even though he found it 'time-consuming and usually disappointing'. Home for the Holidays was an exception, and he euphemistically called his performance 'the most relaxed in the history of cinema'. But in the spring of 1996 Falconer left him, tired of his epic binges.

Things went from bad to worse. That year Sean Penn and Dennis Quaid knocked his door down and put him on a private plane to a rehab centre in Tucson, from which he escaped three days later with only a bottle of water. He hitched a ride into town, then called his accountant to ask for a plane ticket home and spent the flight drinking. On Sunset Strip, Downey was stopped by police; he was driving his Porsche naked as he threw imaginary rats out the window.

That summer, police stopped him for speeding on the Pacific Coast Highway and found small amounts of heroin, cocaine and an unloaded Magnum (for which he had a licence) in his Ford Explorer. Three weeks later, in what became notorious as the 'Goldilocks Incident', he hit bottom. Intoxified, he wandered into a neighbour's house, stripped to his underwear, folded his clothes on to a chair and passed out on an 11-year-old's bed, only to be discovered at around 9pm by a bewildered mother who wondered if her son had gone to sleep early. The tape of her 911 call was made available online, complete with Downey's heavy snoring in the background.

Four days after being arrested, he bolted through a detox-centre bathroom window wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a pair of slippers. He got three years' probation. It worked for a while. Downey hired sober assistants to keep him out of trouble, and daily drug tests were taken without complaint on the set of Two Girls and a Guy in 1997, but he didn't call himself 'Retread Fred, serial relapser' for nothing. Later that year, he skipped a mandatory test and received 113 days in an LA county jail. He needed facial plastic surgery after a vicious brawl there, but he was far from through with drugs. In 1999, after filming Wonder Boys, Downey relapsed. He was struggling with legal bills, had lost his house in Malibu and his Range Rover.

After missing more drug tests, Downey pleaded for clemency: 'It's like I have a shotgun in my mouth, and I've got my finger on the trigger, and I like the taste of gunmetal.' He was sentenced to a humbling three years in the same state penitentiary that is holding Charles Manson. Downey served nearly a year. He shared a cell with five others, waking at 6am, working in the kitchens, undergoing four hours daily of drug counselling. 'There's no way to explain how spiritually debilitating it is to be taken out of the loop of your life. It's like dying,' he told NBC News from prison in 2000.

One day after his release that year, he signed a contract worth $500,000 for eight episodes of Ally McBeal, in which he played the title character's love interest. Even though his charisma boosted the ratings by 11 per cent and he won public respect, the heart of Calista Flockhart (who played McBeal) and, later, a Golden Globe, it was, he has said, his lowest point in terms of addictions. He was depressed about his splintering marriage and finances. People told him to get serious. 'On the contrary,' he says, 'I had to become a child again and forget how disappointing and sad my life had become.'

Four months after leaving jail, he went to a hotel near Palm Springs to spend what became a disastrous Thanksgiving weekend. He picked up a cocktail waitress, Kiley Ridge, and met up with some local barflies. Rolling Stone later ran a six-page investigation into the weekend's events that depicted a depressing vision of celebrity; culminating with someone calling 911 from a payphone and telling the police that 'in Room 311 of the Merv Griffin Resort, there is a man with an ounce of cocaine and a couple of guns and he is pretty upset'. After digging around, the four officers found nearly four grams of heavily cut cocaine, 16 Valium and no guns. 'Don't do this to me,' Downey pleaded. 'You're going to ruin my life.'

He was dropped from Ally McBeal (after which the show lasted one season), and Flockhart hooked up with Harrison Ford. After yet another arrest in 2001, he spent a year at Wavelengths International, a court-ordered drug-treatment facility. By this time Downey was homeless, too much of an insurance liability to be employable and on the verge of bankruptcy. He spoke of the times he spent with his son as 'patches of sunshine'.

His supporters kept rooting for him. While in rehab, he was let out for a day to film Elton John's I Want Love video with Sam Taylor-Wood, and his old friend Mel Gibson came to his rescue by dropping off a script for a film he was producing. Gibson would cover the insurance problem by vouching for him personally. Downey shone in the adaptation of Dennis Potter's The Singing Detective. Extraordinarily, Keith Gordon, its director, described the hardest aspect of working with Downey as getting him to summon up anger: 'Robert by nature is not a very angry person. He has an innate sweetness.' In 2003 Downey had to put up his entire Gothica salary to cover the insurance and the next year he was booted off a Woody Allen film when the premium proved prohibitive.

The life of an actor involves patience, I suggest, trying to empathise with his torments, and fear of roles drying up. 'I guess so,' he replies, 'but I haven't seen that happening to a lot of my peers. Denzel Washington doesn't struggle with why he wasn't at the top of his game for 20 years - he's been at the top of his game. Tom Cruise hasn't had a bad year. He's mastered the reality of being a bona-fide movie star for a long time, and works with the best people year in year out. Then there's Will Smith. He can't do a movie that everybody doesn't want to go see. What is it about him?

"They say this to you all the time - "Stick with the winners, buddy." But I don't know any of those guys. I've got a couple of friends, then my party buddies and whoever I'm in a relationship with or married to. I don't get another shot at looking back 25 years from now and saying, "Did the summer go better than the spring? Now that it's harvest time and it's about to get cold before you die!".'

Iron Man, not to be confused with the Ted Hughes novel, was invented by Stan Lee in the Sixties as part of the Marvel Comics stable of superheroes along with the Incredible Hulk, Spider-Man and the X-Men. Iron Man's alter-ego Tony Stark is a wry, arrogant, charming billionaire industrialist and weapons maker, originally based on Howard Hughes, who gets kidnapped by an Afghan warlord and builds himself a metal suit covered in gadgets that help him out of danger.

Stark is decadent and self-serving, until he has an epiphany that prompts him to help others on a global scale. The director Jon Favreau, who made his name writing and starring in the sassy LA comedy Swingers, envisaged the film as 'a kind of independent film-espionage thriller crossbreed; a Robert Altman-directed Superman, with shades of Tom Clancy novels, James Bond films, RoboCop, and Batman Begins. The story he wanted to tell is one of a famous, flawed but brilliant, funny, complex character and his redemption. Downey had to be the man.

As with Chaplin, Downey fought hard for the part, 'the coolest job I've ever had', relishing the prospect 'of making an establishmentarian, hard-drinking, womanising prick into a character who is likable and a hero.' The studio was apprehensive about him. Ironically, Cruise was an early choice. 'It was very much up in the air,' Downey says breezily, 'but my thing is, if it comes down to it, "let's just bring it outside, bitch!" The Hollywood equivalent of that is a screen test.'

It was the first he had done since Chaplin, and he was well prepared. Kevin Feige, president of productions at Marvel Studios, says casting Downey 'started as a potentially risky decision, but now Jon and I were certain the only risky decision would have been not to cast him'.

When word of Downey's coup spread among Iron Man's legions of fans online, their enthusiasm was overwhelming. 'It was like I was paying this cross-section of people for their response. Maybe it's because I've been around so long and I haven't really, really pissed anyone off, or they haven't found out what an asshole I am. The cool part was that Marvel all of a sudden felt like they'd made the right decision.' On YouTube, roughly four out of every five entries for Robert Downey Jr are for the exhilarating Iron Man trailer. The film, the first of a planned trilogy, looks set to be a runaway success and Downey is on a percentage. Now that fast cars, loud threads and copious narcotics are no longer likely to devour his wages, this heralds a stable future.

'Right,' Downey says, carefully, 'but you know I'm not retiring on this job. I really feel like this is the most fertile time in my whole career and I want to stay hungry. When we were doing Iron Man, I felt like Tom Hanks at the end of Saving Private Ryan; I was like, "Earn this!" When Jon called to tell me I got the part, I said, "Well, I'm going to earn this every day, I swear." Then he and I just went to town trying to infuse this story with a sense of reality, a little humour and some pathos.'

Downey did his utmost to fine-tune the script, and Favreau was such a receptive audience that Downey credits him as being 'the key figure in the resurgence of my enthusiasm'. Anything that has a contemporary reference, Downey says, is 'probably Jon's. The lovable, sarcastic jabs are probably mine and anything that sounds like it was written for Bill Murray 25 years ago was probably both of us.'

Many of Downey's recent roles have related to his past - he plays alcoholics in The Soloist, Zodiac, and a third new film, Charlie Bartlett - and he was quite happy to do the same in Iron Man. The line 'Let's be honest, it's not the worst thing you've caught me doing' to Gwyneth Paltrow is a clear joke about his past shenanigans.

His delight at the outcome is infectious. 'The fact that people aren't saying we need to change the ending or anything has been pretty idyllic, because I know the Hollywood drill: you screen these things and they're a mess and then you do reshoots and the reshoots turn out worse than the original.'

Downey relishes language. He peppers his speech with 'like', 'you know' and 'kinda' for rhythm, and is forever relating little scenarios with such comic vivacity that you feel he's reliving them so you can, too. Sometimes Downey trips over himself in his eagerness to get a point across, and occasionally his answers only just make sense. When explaining his desire to avoid crediting his new wife, Susan Levin, with cleaning up his act, he sums up ambitiously thus, 'Grandiosity and discounting, inflation and desecration. It's that pendulemic thing.'

Most cheeringly, he is never afraid to dive into an analogy, extend it to the point of fancy and then merrily emerge from its depths. The initial lure of acting is likened to skydiving, another hobby. 'Acting was the easiest way to differentiate myself. It was something people felt was daunting but nothing's daunting once you've done it three times. Most try skydiving once. Anyone who does it more will probably do it for the rest of their lives because a, it's a rush; b, it sounds really badass, and c, then you're one of those people and there's identity in that. You're one of those freaks that everyone kind of wishes they were too who's fanning out and creating a snowflake at 12,000ft.'

Downey puts his fluency down to a need to avoid embarrassment: 'I'm not that big a reader, I'm not particularly well educated. My mum and dad used to while away their hours writing and I would hear them trying out lines on each other. I have a general idea about a variety of topics, and so when I'm out there trying to tapdance my way through a dinner where there's a bunch of smart and accomplished people, I want to be able to say words like "palimpsest", or reference Gore Vidal, or pull some Prokofiev movements out of my ass.'

Right now, Downey is too busy for skydiving. Charlie Bartlett, a contemporary rites-of-passage tale in which 'the weirdos win', is also released this month. Downey plays Principal Gardner, a pitiful alcoholic head teacher pitted against wealthy teenager and brilliant (illegal) entrepreneur Charlie Bartlett (Anton Yelchin), in an altogether drabber suit than Tony Stark's. He found playing an authority figure easy. 'We all talked about how I would have been Charlie Bartlett 20 years ago. But Charlie and Gardner see themselves in each other. You know, every wild guy's secretly a square and every square is secretly a wild guy.'

He has just completed work on Tropic Thunder, Ben Stiller's spoof of Vietnam movies, and is wrapped up in The Soloist, the true story of Nathaniel Ayers, a homeless schizophrenic violin genius. Downey plays Steve Lopez, a dissolute Los Angeles Times journalist who befriends him and, through a series of articles, draws attention to LA's 7,000 homeless. The director Joe Wright has said that it must be exhausting being Robert Downey Jr and, sure enough, the irrepressible puppy wants to be completely involved in its production: 'I've had to be put in check a couple of times when I was getting out of line or too emphatic; Joe Wright said, "Sit down and shut up! I'm directing this thing."

'The other day, Seamus McGarvey - the director of photography - Joe and I recreated our approach to one of the movie's most important scenes. It was really risky, but it went well. After a 12-hour nightshoot we all went home and we were so excited that we couldn't sleep. And then we saw each other last night at a dinner party and we go, "Could you sleep?" and Seamus, who's a sweetie, goes, "Man, I couldn't sleep", and Joe's like, "I'm living large. I just wanna party tonight."?' Without missing a beat, Downey adds, possibly knowing how this could be taken, 'I want to drink too much coffee and eat chocolate, and I was like, "Yeah!"'

In Britain at least, Downey's mix of talent and depravity would have made him a national treasure by now. Downey laughs in recognition, and slips in a reference to Vidal. 'Yeah! Gore Vidal told me, "You should go to England where they don't mind drug addicts." It was kind of a back-handed compliment. I was like, "That's not what I want to be." He was like, "You junkies over there!" I was like, "OK, dude, I'm kind of working on this."'

Vidal obviously touched a nerve. Downey is keen to stress how conventional he is. 'At the heart of it [his addiction], I wasn't looking for a way to be left alone... I'm a lot more conservative than my behaviour might have indicated, very stoic, faithful...I'm not a psychological mess and I'm actually a very stable, and trustworthy and consistent person. All the stuff that was detracting from who I wanted to be has fallen away, and so what's left is the discipline that I learnt over years and years and years of having to show up at call time.'

Downey's upbringing was loose and anarchic and his private life followed suit but his aspirations were always towards the mainstream, hence his disappointment at losing out on the Oscar. His music of choice in prison was, tellingly, a Sting CD. Both Sting and Billy Joel - icons of the mainstream - performed at Downey's second wedding in 2005 to Levin, whom he introduced to America by way of the Oprah Winfrey Show.

He may joke about it onscreen, but Downey is so sheepish, or perhaps so bored with talking about the 'wreckage of my past' that he called his proficient though hardly cutting-edge CD, The Futurist. At home, a photo of him and his wife with President and Laura Bush at the White House is stuck to the kitchen wall.

Now that Downey finally looks to be joining the Hollywood establishment, rather than becoming, in his words, 'this ne'er-do-well embittered, unemployable guy arguing with some hooker outside a Malibu hotel scrambling for a syringe,' he can no longer think of himself as an outsider.

He says, 'There have been so many firsts all happening at once this year - playing a superhero; appearing at the Comic Convention; receiving the award for Male Star of the Year. Here comes the bad metaphor: it's the journey not the destination, but when the journey is so long and you feel like you've been driving for ever, it's finally nice when you see "Vegas Two Miles". But then,' he adds, hinting perhaps that a clean future is no guaranteed bet, 'it's not like you're in Xanadu. It's still Vegas.'

'Iron Man' opens on May 2. 'Charlie Bartlett' opens on May 9

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After 20 years of drink, drugs, 'unthinkably surreal' debauchery and spells in prison and rehab, Robert Downey Jr seems finally to have conquered his addictions. With Hollywood's confidence in him restored, he is now carrying the $186 million blockbuster, Iron Man.

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Horn (2000) Newspaper Article: 'Downey and Out Again' frames the notion that his career is over and he will continue to spiral forever 

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Horn (2000) Newspaper Article: 'Downey and Out Again' frames the notion that his career is over and he will continue to spiral forever 

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Horn, J. (2000) ‘Downey and Out Again’, Newsweek, 136(24), p. 65. Available at: https://search-ebscohost-com.liverpool.idm.oclc.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=3832470&site=ehost-live&scope=site (Accessed: 6 November 2023).

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ET (2015) FLASHBACK: Robert Downey Jr. is Incredibly Bashful in 1987 Interview:Actors are so Insecure. 28 April. Available at: above (Accessed 8 November 2023)

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ET: Downey Jr interview for the Pick-up Artist 

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ET: Downey Jr interview for the Pick-up Artist 

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Downey Jr presents a very authentic, open view of himself, how he sees himself as an actor all whilst promoting his first leading role. Gives audiences a deeper interpretation and understanding of Downey Jr

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FLASHBACK: Robert Downey Jr. is Incredibly Bashful in 1987 Interview: 'Actors are so Insecure'

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Air America (1990) Directed by R. Spottiswoode [Feature Film]. Culver City, CA: Tri-star Pictures 

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Downey Jr stars as Billy Covington, a pilot who had his license taken off him due to his rebellious behaviour is recruited to take on a mission what requires his bravery skills and no good attitude.

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Don Giller (2019) Robert Downey, Jr. on Letterman, August 1, 1990. 16 August. Available at: above (Accessed 8 November 2023)

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Promotes Air America on Letterman (1990)

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Promotes Air America on Letterman (1990)

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Presents himself as charming through humour and presents a authentic charming self through anecdotes about his time on set of Air America and SNL

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Robert Downey, Jr. on Letterman, August 1, 1990

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The start of his journey and all of these role represent the kind of actor and celebrity breaking through. All of these movies roles have been comedic to this point and in most he played a classic school schtick like a bully. A schtick helps audiences to anchor which genre or kind of actor he belongs too. For Downey Jr it helped create a persona of someone who is young, hip, witty, charming which is reinforced through Downey Jr attitude in interviews.

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Good Morning Britain (2020) Robert Downey Junior & Susan Downey Attempt Our Version Of Mr and Mrs!. 6 February. Available at: above. (Accessed 8 November 2023)

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Highlights Downeys want to be seen as a unit with his wife, by playing mr and mrs and sharing the spotlight. It highlights the importance of his wife in his personal and public life

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Robert Downey Junior & Susan Downey Attempt Our Version Of Mr and Mrs! | Good Morning Britain

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Corinne Heller (2015) Robert Downey Jr.-The Pick-Up Artist-Watch a Throwback '80s Interview!. 30 April. Available at: above (Accessed 8 November 2023)

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talks about what it means to be an actor in a movie, you should be kind and helpful, reflects an actor who can be hip and cool but can also be responsible and thoughtful

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Watch: Throwback! Robert Downey Jr. Talks Acting Back in 1987

Before Robert Downey Jr. was Iron Man, he was a Pick-Up Artist.

At the age of 22, he played Jack Jericho and was romancing none other than The Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink's Molly Ringwald, a fellow member of what was referred to as the Brat Pack of the '80s, in the 1987 romantic comedy The Pick-Up Artist, which was the first movie to feature Downey in a main role.

In an interview carried out for what is now E!, Downey, looking adorable in a black T-shirt, talked about making the leap from supporting actor to leading man...and it seemed like he wasn't too comfortable being in the spotlight.

"I don't believe in like, supporting casts because I believe everyone is a supporting player and I believe every movie whether you're called the lead or whatever, you're a supporting player," he said.

"Because, you know, Mildred Dunnock plays my grandmother but the movie could easily be about, when I come and go, 'Hi Grandma, take your medicine,' and then I leave to go out and cruise the streets, you might as well...the movie could be about what she does when I'm gone-playing Checkers or, you know, showering up or something."

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Robert Downey Jr. Is Adorable While Talking About Acting, The Pick-Up Artist-Watch a Throwback '80s Interview! - E! Online

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The actor became a leading movie man at age 22 in 1987

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k4m1k4c3 (2010) Tropic Thunder Promo - MTV Movie Awards. 28 April. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czlZjo1UX94 (Accessed 8 November 2023)

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Similarly in an advert for Tropic Thunder (2008), Downey embodies the iconography of Iron Man 

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Similarly in an advert for Tropic Thunder (2008), Downey embodies the iconography of Iron Man 

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Promoting the film, with the idea that Tony Stark is in it/acting in it. Shows how Downey Jr is using Stark to represent his image.

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Morin, E. (1956) ‘Les stars’, Esprit (Paris. 1932), 24(244), pp. 674-.

He suggests that a star image can be taken over by a certain role or character the actor is known for. This leads to the actor becoming and embodying the character outside of the original text. We see this with Downey jr and the character of Iron Man through the following...

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Dyer, R. (1979) Stars. London: BFI (Accessed: 8 December 2021)

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Dyer, R. (1979) Stars. London: BFI (Accessed: 8 December 2021)

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Howell, C (2023) A Touch More with Megan Rapinoe and Sue Bird: authenticity, intimacy and women’s sports celebrity on Instagram live, Celebrity Studies, 14:3, 264-279, DOI: 10.1080/19392397.2021.1958694

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Howell, C (2023) A Touch More with Megan Rapinoe and Sue Bird: authenticity, intimacy and women’s sports celebrity on Instagram live, Celebrity Studies, 14:3, 264-279, DOI: 10.1080/19392397.2021.1958694

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Highlights the notion that a celebrity seems more authentic to an audience if they show weaknesses associated with an ordinary person.

Downeys addictions helped make him seem more authentic to audiences, this authenticity meant audiences felt more connected to Downey Jr, allowing him to make a comeback

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Lennard, D. (2019) ‘Wonder Boys: Matt Damon, Johnny Depp, and Robert Downey Jr’, in Shining in Shadows. Ithaca, NY: Rutgers University Press, pp. 12–31. Available at: https://doi.org/10.36019/9780813552163-003.

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Lennard, D. (2019) ‘Wonder Boys: Matt Damon, Johnny Depp, and Robert Downey Jr’, in Shining in Shadows. Ithaca, NY: Rutgers University Press, pp. 12–31. Available at: https://doi.org/10.36019/9780813552163-003.

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This book highlights Downey Jr comeback with Iron Man (2008) film. Highlights how he wanted to be seen as in control and professional and how Iron man was his way back.

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Eberwein, R (2010) Acting for America : Movie Stars of The 1980s, edited by Robert Eberwein, Rutgers University Press. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/liverpool/detail.action?docID=867795. (Accessed 8 November 2023)

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Eberwein, R (2010) Acting for America : Movie Stars of The 1980s, edited by Robert Eberwein, Rutgers University Press. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/liverpool/detail.action?docID=867795. (Accessed 8 November 2023)

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This concept is highlighted by Eberwein

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Gerbner's Cultivation Theory (1986): Gerbner, G., Gross, L., Morgan, M. and Signorelli, N. (1986) Living with Television: The Dynamics of the Cultivation Process, in J. Bryant and D. Zillman (eds) Perspectives on Media Effects . Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. G (Accessed: 2007)

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Gerbner's Cultivation Theory (1986): Gerbner, G., Gross, L., Morgan, M. and Signorelli, N. (1986) Living with Television: The Dynamics of the Cultivation Process, in J. Bryant and D. Zillman (eds) Perspectives on Media Effects . Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. G (Accessed: 2007)

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The idea that repeated exposure to the same ideology or iconography can change an audiences perceptions.

If applying this to Downey Jr, this 5 year negative news cycle, means that audiences are constantly seeing Downey Jr being labelled as a criminal, leading to Downey Jr's star image being impacted...

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Gregory (2008) believes the reason why audiences love and invest in celebrity trials is because they love their dramatical nature and the fact that a star has further to fall compared to a ordinary person

Gregory, K. (2008) "Celebrities: Who they are, how they gain popularity, and why society is so fascinated with them and their court cases". Senior Honors Theses & Projects. 150. Available at: https://commons.emich.edu/honors/150 (Accessed 8 November 2023)

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Iron Man (2008) Directed by J. Favreau. [Feature Film] California: Paramount Picture Studios.

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a snarky, edgy, egotistical, hip, heroic celebrity