Robert Downey Jr.
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"The problems we all face, they beat a lot of people," says Mel Gibson, who has been Downey's friend since they met on the set of 1990's Air America. "You try and deal with it. You try and manage it. I share that with him." Gibson, who has talked openly about his own alcoholism, gave Downey his first post-rehab film break, in 2003's The Singing Detective; as producer, Gibson put up the insurance money for his friend. Slowly, Downey re-established his credibility, making 16 more films in the next five years, including critical favorites Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang and Zodiac.
As he rebuilt his career, Downey also worked on, for the first time, a healthy relationship with a woman. "I don't want to be that schmuck who's just, you know, looking down a hallway in a leased McMinimansion in Brentwood going, 'Hey. I wonder what me and so-and-so are going to do tonight.'" The stable family that Downey craved didn't come intuitively. Early on when they were dating, says Susan, "he'd be driving home, and I'd say, 'Drive safely.' He'd be like, 'What do you mean? Do you think I'm not a good driver?' 'No, dude, that's what you say when you care about someone.'"
Downey learned that the lifelong yen for domesticity that sprang from his nomadic youth needed feeding. "I'm comfortable and rooted in the mundane, like a beekeeper," he says. "I've realigned myself with whatever my quirky-ass passions are. I love history. I love martial arts. Above all, I love my wife and my kid." When he and Susan have a child, Downey says, "I'm probably just as likely to wind up being John to her Yoko. She can go out and do some stuff; I'll stay home with little Missy."
If studio execs had any lingering doubts after casting Downey in Iron Man, they must have been soothed when comic-book fans greeted him ecstatically at last summer's Comic-Con in San Diego. A conventiongoer, dressed in a medical costume, strode up to a microphone at the Marvel panel and told Downey, "You've always been one of my favorite actors because we kind of share the same difficult past, if you know what I'm saying." To which a deadpan Downey replied, "Are you a war veteran too?" When asked why he dodged the kid's obvious search for some advice on beating addiction, Downey suggests that being the poster boy for recovery is just another form of narcissism. Other stars have been known to call Downey for help, a responsibility he doesn't seem entirely comfortable with. "I know this: I'm not the recovering guy, and I'm not the drug-addled ne'er-do-well, you know? I'm neither of those. I want out of that game. I want nothing to do with it. I want to do my work."
Somehow Downey's winding road through stints as wunderkind, ne'er-do-well and recovering guy took him to where he is today: a contented, kung-fu-obsessed homebody in the prime of his career. But he really can't tell you how. "If I try to explain it," he says, "then I'm imagining that I've figured it out." Hero he may be, but he's not the figuring-out type.
Downey on Downey The actor talks more at time.com/downey