At the age of five, Downey made his acting debut in his father Robert Downey Sr.'s film Pound (1970). He rose to prominence by working with the Brat Pack for the teen films Weird Science (1985) and Less than Zero (1987). His portrayal of Charlie Chaplin in the biopic Chaplin (1992) earned him the BAFTA Award for Best Actor and an Academy Award nomination.
After spending less than a year at a treatment facility on drug charges, Downey joined the television series Ally McBeal in 2000, earning a Golden Globe for his performance. Dismissed from the show in 2001 following further drug-related arrests, he entered a court-ordered rehabilitation program and has remained sober since 2003.
Downey revitalized his career and achieved global recognition by starring as Tony Stark / Iron Man in ten Marvel Cinematic Universe films, beginning with a solo feature film in 2008. He is set to return to the franchise as Doctor Doom in Avengers: Doomsday (2026). He earned his second Academy Award nomination for his performance in the satirical comedy Tropic Thunder (2008) and later won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of bureaucrat Lewis Strauss in Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer (2023).
He also portrayed the titular role in Sherlock Holmes (2009), which earned him a Golden Globe Award nomination. In 2024, he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for the miniseries The Sympathizer and made his Broadway debut in the title role of Ayad Akhtar's McNeal.
Time named Downey one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2008 and Forbes featured him on the Celebrity 100 in 2013 and 2014. He has pursued music, releasing the jazz-pop album The Futurist (2004), which charted on the US Billboard 200. Divorced from singer Deborah Falconer, Downey has been married to film producer Susan Levin since 2005; they co-founded the production company Team Downey.
Downey has three children: one with Falconer and two with Levin. In 2025, he was named one of the greatest film actors of the 21st century by The Independent.
Early life and acting background
Robert John Downey Jr. was born in Manhattan, a borough of New York City, on April 4, 1965. His father, Robert Downey Sr. (né Elias), was a filmmaker with Lithuanian Jewish and Irish ancestry. His mother, Elsie Ann (née Ford), was an actress who appeared in Robert Sr.'s films and had Scottish, German, and Swiss ancestry. Downey's sister, Allyson, is about a year and a half older than he.
Due to his father's film projects, Downey moved frequently during his childhood, living in places such as Woodstock, New York; London, England; New Mexico; California; Connecticut; and Greenwich Village in New York City. From a young age, Downey was exposed to drugs: his father struggled with addiction, and his mother battled alcoholism.
His father introduced him to marijuana at either age six or eight; Robert Sr. later expressed regret for doing so. Downey mentioned that using drugs with his father created an emotional connection between them, explaining that, "When my dad and I used drugs together, it was his way of showing love for me in the only manner he knew." During his childhood, he appeared in small roles in his father's films.
He made his acting debut at the age of five, portraying a sick puppy in the absurdist comedy film Pound (1970), and at seven, he appeared in the Western film Greaser's Palace (1972). At ages eleven and twelve, he attended Stagedoor Manor, a summer acting camp in upstate New York.
In school, Downey was a hyperactive child who "tried to be cool", often teased by the older boys but popular with the girls. His parents divorced when he was twelve; afterward, he lived with his mother in a fifth-floor apartment in New York City, while his sister stayed with their father, who later took her to a boarding school.
He attended Lincoln Junior High School for eighth grade and then Santa Monica High School for ninth and tenth grades, but dropped out in 1982. At age 17, Downey relocated to his home town to pursue acting full-time, working several jobs such as clearing tables at a Central Falls restaurant, working in a shoe store, and performing as "living art" at the nightclub Area to support himself during auditions. During this period, he also appeared in local theater and off-Broadway productions.
Career
1983–1995: Early work and critical acclaim
Downey made his stage debut in 1983 with a three-week run in Alms for the Middle Class at the Geva Theatre Center in Rochester, New York. He then appeared in the short-lived off-Broadway musical American Passion at the Joyce Theater, produced by Norman Lear. Downey's first credited film role was in Baby It's You (1983), though most of his scenes were cut.
In his early film roles, he frequently portrayed misfit characters, and his portrayals of punk-like figures in several 1980s coming-of-age films led to his occasional association with the Brat Pack. In the drama film Firstborn (1984), he played a supporting role as the teenage friend of the protagonist. Downey then traveled to Los Angeles to film Tuff Turf (1985), in which he played James Spader's sidekick and a punk drummer.
Later that year, his role as a bully in John Hughes's Weird Science (1985) marked his breakthrough. Downey starred as a radical socialist in the Alan Metter comedy film Back to School (1987).
In 1985, Downey joined the new, younger cast of Saturday Night Live, securing the audition with help from his Weird Science co-star and friend Anthony Michael Hall. After a season of poor ratings and criticism of the cast's comedic ability, he and most of the new members were dismissed. Downey's first leading role came in The Pick-up Artist (1987), which faced criticism for being "sexually irresponsible" because of its portrayal of promiscuous sex during a period of heightened AIDS awareness.
He earned critical acclaim for his role as a drug-addicted rich boy whose life rapidly spirals out of control in the drama film Less than Zero (1987), the film adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis's 1985 novel. Critic Roger Ebert called his performance "so real, so subtle and so observant that it's scary", and Janet Maslin, in The New York Times, deemed it "desperately moving".
Downey said that the role felt like "the ghost of Christmas Future" for him, as his drug habit led him to become an "exaggeration of the character" in real life.
Shortly after completing Less than Zero, Downey entered rehab for the first time, beginning a decade-long cycle of interventions and treatment stints that culminated in his 1996 arrest. He starred alongside Kiefer Sutherland and Winona Ryder in the teen drama film 1969 (1988). The film saw mixed reception, though his performance garnered good reviews from writers at Variety and Deseret News.
Downey went on to star in the films Chances Are (1989) with Cybill Shepherd and Ryan O'Neal, Air America (1990) with Mel Gibson, and Soapdish (1991) with Sally Field, Kevin Kline, Cathy Moriarty, and Whoopi Goldberg; each saw varying critical success. Downey trained extensively to prepare for his portrayal of comic actor and filmmaker Charlie Chaplin in the biopic Chaplin (1992), learning to play the violin and tennis left-handed, and working with a coach to replicate Chaplin's accent and mannerisms.
Although the film was a box-office bomb, Downey's performance received critical acclaim. It earned him the BAFTA Award for Best Actor, as well as Academy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations.
Oh come on—that's too much! You're going too far, Robert, [...] you're ruining my movie! Forget the dumb dick idea. [...] This isn't some slapstick bullshit
In 1993, Downey starred in Heart and Souls, playing a man possessed by multiple characters—a performance that critic Peter Travers praised as revealing his "explosive talent for physical comedy". In Only You (1994), co-starring Marisa Tomei and Billy Zane, Downey played Peter Wright, a professional dancer who poses as the soulmate for Tomei's character Faith.
Norman Jewison, the film's director, cast Downey because he reminded him of Tony Curtis: "charming with great comedic timing". In preparation for his role of reporter Wayne Gale in Natural Born Killers (1994), Downey shadowed Australian television shock journalist Steve Dunleavy, which helped him develop an Australian accent.
The film proved successful at the box office, grossing $110 million on a $34 million budget. Throughout 1995, he took on a string of diverse roles, appearing in the period drama Restoration, the Shakespearean adaptation Richard III, and the family ensemble Home for the Holidays.
1996–2001: Addiction-related setbacks and Ally McBeal
In early 1996, concerned for Downey's well-being, Sean Penn and Dennis Quaid went to his home, took his car keys, and brought him to a rehab facility in Tucson, Arizona, but he checked himself out a few days later. In June 1996, he was arrested for possession of heroin, cocaine, crack cocaine, and an unloaded .357 Magnum handgun while speeding down Sunset Boulevard.
A month later, while under the influence of a controlled substance, he entered a neighbor's home through an unlocked front door and fell asleep on their child's bed. The family declined to press trespassing charges. The 911 call made by the neighbor was later circulated online and became known as the "Goldilocks incident".
In September 1996, he pleaded no contest; two months later, following a period in court-ordered rehab, he was sentenced to another six months of live-in rehabilitation, three years' probation, and compulsory drug testing.
Downey starred in Two Girls and a Guy (1997), portraying a duplicitous man who convinces each of two women that she is his only love. After missing a court-ordered drug test in 1997, he spent six months in Los Angeles County Jail. In January 1998, he was briefly released from jail to film U.S. Marshals. Upon his full release, he entered a court-mandated 120-day rehab program and then starred in Black and White (1999), playing Terry Donager, the gay husband of a documentary filmmaker.
That year, after maintaining sobriety during the filming of Wonder Boys (2000), Downey relapsed. At the time, he was facing financial difficulties and had lost his house in Malibu. Later that year, after missing another court-ordered drug test, he was arrested again. Despite his lawyer Robert Shapiro assembling the same legal team that had successfully defended O.
J. Simpson in his criminal trial, Downey was sentenced to a three-year prison term at the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison in Corcoran. At the time of his arrest, all of Downey's film projects had been completed and were nearing release. He had also been hired to voice the devil in the NBC animated series God, the Devil and Bob, but was dismissed after failing to attend rehearsals.
After spending nearly a year in the Corcoran prison, Downey was unexpectedly released in 2000 on the condition of posting a $5,000 bail, when a judge ruled that his cumulative time in incarceration facilities—from his initial 1996 arrests—qualified him for early release. A week after his release, he joined the cast of the television series Ally McBeal as a new love interest.
For his performance, he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries, or Television Film. In retrospect, Downey described his performance as overrated, deeming it his "lowest point in terms of addictions".
Before the end of his first season on Ally McBeal, Downey was arrested on Thanksgiving in 2000, after police responded to an anonymous 911 call and searched his room at Merv Griffin's Hotel and Givenchy Spa in Palm Springs, California. He was found under the influence of a controlled substance and in possession of cocaine and valium.
Despite facing a prison sentence of up to four years and eight months if convicted, Downey committed to appear in at least eight more episodes of Ally McBeal.
In April 2001, while on parole, Downey was found wandering barefoot in Culver City by a Los Angeles police officer. He was arrested on suspicion of being under the influence of drugs but was released a few hours later, even though tests confirmed the presence of cocaine in his system. After the arrest, the producers of Ally McBeal ordered last-minute rewrites and reshoots before dismissing him from the series, despite his character having boosted the show's ratings.
In July 2001, Downey pleaded no contest to the Palm Springs charges, avoiding jail time. Instead, he was ordered into drug rehabilitation and sentenced to three years of probation under California Proposition 36, which had been enacted to direct nonviolent drug offenders toward treatment rather than prison. He spent a year in Wavelengths International, a court-mandated rehabilitation facility.
By this time Downey was homeless, considered too great an insurance risk to be employable, and facing bankruptcy.
2001–2007: Recovery and comeback
I said, 'You know what? I don't think I can continue doing this.' And I reached out for help, and I ran with it. You can reach out for help in kind of a half-assed way and you'll get it and you won't take advantage of it. It's not that difficult to overcome these seemingly ghastly problems [...] what's hard is to decide to do it.
After five years of substance abuse, arrests, and relapse, Downey began working toward a full recovery in 2001. His first acting job after rehabilitation came in August, when he appeared lip-syncing in the music video for Elton John's single "I Want Love", directed by Sam Taylor-Wood. Two years later, he returned to film with The Singing Detective (2003), directed by his Back to School co-star Keith Gordon, after Mel Gibson paid his insurance bond, allowing him to be cast.
He played Dan Dark, a paralyzed, suffering pulp novelist who hallucinates and drifts between reality and fantasy. Although the film received mixed reviews, Downey regarded it as a personal achievement. For Gothika (2003), producer Joel Silver withheld 40 percent of Downey's salary until production was completed as protection against potential issues related to his addiction.
Silver secured Downey the lead role in Shane Black's directorial debut, the comedy thriller Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005). Downey received positive reviews for his performance: Mike Russell, writing in The Oregonian, called it "one of [his] most enjoyable performances", and a writer for The Age deemed it a "terrific comic performance".
Downey appeared in a range of leading and supporting roles, gaining particular recognition for his performances in several semi-independent films. In Good Night, and Good Luck (2005), he portrayed a CBS journalist and editor secretly married to a coworker, a relationship concealed due to the network's policy prohibiting employees from marrying one another.
His role as a drug addict in Richard Linklater's dystopian, rotoscoped film A Scanner Darkly (2006) was praised; Travers called his performance "the film's flashiest and most ferociously entertaining", and critic J. Hoberman regarded it as "the performance to beat" that year. Downey's character in Steven Shainberg's fictional biographical drama Fur (2006) was a composite representing the two most significant influences on Diane Arbus's professional life, Lisette Model and Marvin Israel. Fur was poorly received by critics, but they lauded Downey's performance.
In 2005, Downey voiced the character of Patrick Pewterschmidt for an episode of Family Guy titled "The Fat Guy Strangler". That year, Downey signed a deal with HarperCollins to publish a memoir, which he described as a candid account of his life and career. In 2008, he returned his advance and canceled the project without explanation.
In 2007, he appeared in David Fincher's mystery thriller Zodiac, based on true events, portraying San Francisco Chronicle journalist Paul Avery, who covered the Zodiac Killer case. Downey's performance was critically acclaimed; a Tuscaloosa News writer deemed it one of his best, and critic Manohla Dargis remarked that he was at the "top of [his] performance game".
2008–2019: Commercial success and stardom as Iron Man
In 2006, Downey was cast as the titular character in Iron Man, a superhero film. Director Jon Favreau explained that although Downey was not the most obvious choice, "he understood what makes the character tick. He found a lot of his own life experience in 'Tony Stark'." Favreau strongly advocated for Downey's casting, believing he could elevate the film's quality and generate widespread audience interest, much like Johnny Depp had done for the Pirates of the Caribbean series.
Downey gained more than twenty pounds (nine kilograms) of muscle over five months to achieve the physicality required for the part. Iron Man was released on May 2, 2008, in the US. It became the eighth-highest-grossing film of 2008, earning more than $585 million worldwide against a production budget of $130 million.
