That says a lot: Robert Downey Jr. preferred prison to filming what he describes as “the worst action movie of all time”…
Acting in a film and then regretting it: it’s happened to many actors. But between regret and “preferring prison” rather than reliving the experience in question: that’s something else. So it would seem that no one hates one of his films as much as Robert Downey Jr. hates his 1998 action thriller, US Marshals.
Spin-off of The Fugitive with Harrison Ford, and in which Tommy Lee Jones reprized his role of Samuel Gerard for a second hunt, U.S. Marshals staged Robert Downey Jr. in the shoes of special agent John Royce who participated in the search to find an escaped criminal (played by Wesley Snipes).
If the 90s offered him roles in little-known gems and an Oscar nomination for Best Actor for Chaplin, the actor also has some very bad memories of this decade marked at the same time by his addiction problems.
In 2010, in his biography Robert Downey Jr: The Fall and Rise of the Comeback Kidthe actor discusses how he fought his way back to Hollywood’s Premier League after a career low that seemed insurmountable – and he describes the film in question.
“This is probably the worst action movie of all time, and it’s definitely not good for maintaining mental fitness. You are having a horrible year, you are on the verge of suicide, what do you think would benefit you? Maybe twelve weeks running around with a gun in his hand?”
Warner Bros. Robert Downey Jr. in “US Marshals” (1998)
He pursues : “I think if you talked to a spiritual guide about this, they would say, ‘This will kill you.’ I thought I was missing something, and that it would be good if I acted in a film that my children could enjoy. But the experience turned out to be depressing. I would even rather wake up in prison than wake up on the set of US Marshals again.”
Words that should not be taken lightly since, unfortunately, Robert Downey Jr. knows what he’s talking about: after the film’s release, in 1999, he was sentenced to a year’s imprisonment following an offense linked to his drug consumption.
“I don’t remember anything about US Marshals except that we were running around and pretending we could compete with The Fugitive. [Rires] I just remember something like: ‘Put on your bulletproof vest, you’re in the bayou!’ [Rires] What is this mess ? Where is the story?’”
In the early 2000s, however, the actor found his way to redemption, determined to achieve sobriety: a choice he made, in his own words, by consuming a particularly disgusting hamburger. The rest, you know it, successes such as Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) – which he also loved filming, an experience “innovative and new” for him – then Tropic Thunder (2008) and the Sherlock Holmes film series (2009), before Iron Man came to change his life, until his recognition at the Oscars two weeks ago for his role in Christopher Nolan’s acclaimed Oppenheimer.
The future belongs to RDJ, that’s assured.
Oppenheimer is still showing in a few remaining cinemas: to be discovered, if you haven’t already.
And/or discover Oppenheimer’s gaffes and small errors in the video below: