[producer] What do you think we should do?
-[Downey Sr.] Us? -[producer] Yeah.
See, if you could get this,
like a close-up or maybe from here up.
-[producer] Yeah? -[Downey Sr.] You got it going?
[producer] Well, no. I'm wide right now.
No, I would get in tighter 'cause it'll be a cutaway.
Yeah, you're gonna want this tight. We might as well get that insert now.
-Let us know when you're rolling. -[Downey Sr.] Rolling? Let's start again.
First, it's not moving. You say, "Oh, this is bullshit."
-[Downey Jr.] Yeah, yeah. -[Downey Sr.] Then it starts moving.
[Downey Jr.] "Wait a minute."
"Maybe that serpent's not full of shit after all."
[Downey Sr. laughing]
-Dad, can I give it a spin? -Yeah, do it, please.
[Downey Jr.] This might be our first coproduction here.
[Rogers laughs]
[Downey Sr.] Nice. Nice!
-["Surf Finger" by Jack Nitzsche playing] -[Downey Sr.] Hey, it's nice!
-It needed your touch. -[Downey Jr. laughing]
[producer] Where would you go next?
-After this? -[producer] Yeah.
We're not even halfway to any ideas like that.
[Rogers laughing]
We're just having fun and getting started. [chuckles]
[groovy '60s rock playing]
[Downey Jr.] Steady on those steps.
-[Downey Sr.] Oh my God. -Give him a hand, Rogers.
-[Rogers] I got it. -Let's not lose our principal.
[Downey Jr.] I'm very interested in who my dad is just in the here and now
because no one knows the hour and the day.
We never know how much time we have with each other.
I think, also, to me, like, he was just always this kinda looming figure.
Like, I was just Bob Downey's kid for a long time.
[music continues]
[Cavett] Success may burst like a clap of thunder
over his head if he isn't careful,
and he's a talented underground filmmaker named Robert Downey.
[crowd applauding]
Do you feel a little compromised by being here
on a network television show?
No, because I know if the film doesn't open,
and it doesn't do well, I won't get to make another one.
[music continues]
[Downey Sr.] I knew the minute I started fooling around with this stuff
that it was better than working a job.
Shouldn't you be in school?
Fuck you.
And fuck the establishment.
And fuck you people
who are trying to make me part of the unestablished establishment.
[Downey Jr.] I was raised in this family
where doing underground films was the norm.
It was very natural to have no interaction with mainstream anything.
[music continues]
[Letterman] What was the first film you were in? One of your dad's projects?
-[Downey Jr.] It was. -[Letterman] What became of you then?
-[sighs loudly] -[crowd laughing]
Then he became the highest-paid movie actor in the world.
-That's what he decided to do. -Yeah, I guess, Dad, come get your cut.
-[Letterman laughing] -[crowd applauding]
[Downey Sr.] That's a shot with Robert and I ages ago.
And the photographer says,
"Why don't we each have you guys have chainsaws?"
And Robert said, "Get the fuck out of here."
Uh, we still… We're still happy with the title "Sr.," are we not?
Yeah, I like it, but we can… we can do better.
Oh.
[music ends]
[birds chirping]
-[Downey Jr.] Where is Sr.? -[producer] The back house.
Yeah, let's go walk out there. Come on.
["Theme from A Summer Place (Instrumental)" by Percy Faith playing]
You will presently witness
the offspring of Sr.'s offspring.
Don't throw water balloons at the, uh… at my crew.
I like that that's his kid, and here's his daughter.
Good shot.
Great. Movement.
Nobody's sitting.
[Downey Jr.] Hey, have you seen any of Grandpa's movies?
No, why?
Because they're awesome. Do you wanna see 'em someday?
-[Exton] Uh, maybe. -Just a maybe.
Dude, if you're gonna throw a water balloon, hit me with it.
[Downey Jr. laughing exaggeratedly]
-[Downey Sr. chuckling] -[Exton yelling on screen]
-That's good. -[Downey Jr. shrieks on screen]
[chucking]
[Downey Jr.] Avri, give us a wave. That's all we need.
Just give us a little wave. Ah, Christ.
-[Exton exclaiming, laughing] -[Downey Jr. laughing]
[Exton] Get… You need to get those hairs wet.
[laughing] Jesus H…
Don't you hit me again. I swear to God.
Don't… don't get the camera wet.
Quit it. Sr.?
Your grandson is boundaryless.
This is like growing up with my dad.
"Hey, whatever you do, don't get the camera wet."
-Did you get it? -We got it.
We don't have anything usable yet, except Exton provided some… some action.
-You mind if I switch out real quick? -No.
Thanks.
[song fades]
[Downey Sr.] I just wanna show you something before we do anything.
-Just me? -[Downey Sr.] No, Rosemary and you.
Here she is.
[Rogers] Robert had an idea of doing a documentary about his dad
and about their history and their life together.
You know, so many people, they know Robert Downey Jr.,
but they don't know Robert Downey Sr.
And he just wanted to, for the record, correct that.
[Downey Jr.] We're just finding our way into something
that we hope winds up being interesting
and not the usual
and a bit of a foray into that crazy thing,
you know, of trying to understand your dad.
[producer] Do you feel like you understand him now?
I have a feeling I'll know a lot more…
[laughs] …when we're done.
You come back, which is probably where we'll start,
to Robert and Rosemary on the couch, and we go from there.
Look, we'll do the same thing, except we'll do it out there.
Yeah.
-"How long have you two been married?" -That's me, right?
-Yeah. -Yeah.
How long have you and Pops been married?
Fifteen hundred years.
See, I think this… We should switch seats.
You should. Let's get her in the middle.
-[Downey Sr. groans softly] -Oh yeah.
How long have you guys been married?
Fifteen hundred years.
-Oh boy. -Mm-hmm.
Did that go better this time?
She looked up in the middle of something up… up that way.
You're right. Let's do it again. Take three, opener.
[Rogers laughing]
[Downey Jr.] He would rather be doing a film about something else
than allow a documentary to be made about him.
So the middle ground has been he's doing his own version.
How long have you two been married?
Uh, fifteen hundred years this July.
-Oh my God. -I know.
-Oh wow, happy anniversary. Almost. -Thank you.
-Fine by me. -Okay.
-By the way, that's his directing style. -[Rogers chuckles]
[Downey Jr.] So then I put it to him this way. I said, "Dad,
the legitimate documentary we're making about you
is kinda what's covering the cost of this art film that you're making."
And he seems agreeable to that.
Whoa!
["Besame Mucho" by Artie Shaw and His Gramercy Five playing]
You got it? That's good. That's worth the whole day.
That's funny.
I'm thinking any visuals that you must like goes on file.
And you never know.
It could end up right somewhere where you didn't expect it.
What's the guy who said, "One picture is worth a thousand words"?
It's one good picture.
Sr. would be one of the best people to caption photographs or street scenes
that you will ever meet.
In a more of a typical, mid-century, male, butch way though.
Oftentimes it's, "Look at this douche."
Look at this group.
-[Rogers] What's going on over there? -[Downey Sr.] AA meeting. [laughing]
"Let's go have a drink. Nobody'll know."
Look what's going on in that window.
There should be somebody on the other side
performing a wedding ceremony for somebody outside.
[chuckling] Maybe.
[song continues]
Well, here's the corner, and this used to be an apartment building.
This is it.
I don't know what you're thinking, but maybe
you start on that and then hear the dialogue
and come over and show this.
[producer] Okay.
[song ends]
[indistinct chatter]
[Downey Sr.] 116 University used to be, uh, three lofts,
and we were on the next-to-top floor, the second one up.
Nothing's left.
[producer] Did you feel pretty grown up? Y'know, you had kids.
No.
No, that might be the problem. [chuckles]
I don't know what Robert thought, but it was different.
[producer] Were you making a film while you lived here?
Oh yeah.
[CD case clatters]
"Downey film short"?
I don't know what that is.
I can get rid of all these.
I'm just thinking that I wanna go through my films
and pick out scenes that I know will work in what you're doing.
That's actually more important than anything.
Oh, this is interesting.
Let's start with this.
[kissing]
[woman] Mmm…
[Downey Sr.] There it is.
[woman] Love you, Walter.
I'll see ya later.
[woman] I love you more than anything else in the world.
[Walter] I love you too, Mother.
[laughing]
That's good.
-[producer] Did you write that? -[Downey Sr.] Oh yeah.
This is how we got started.
[producer] Your career?
The whole fucking thing.
[laughing]
["Baja" by Jack Nitzsche playing]
[mother] You know, Walter, you can have whatever you want in this life.
I guess the only thing I really want
is you.
Chafed Elbows is a film about an oddball
who marries his mother and goes on welfare.
It is an ode to Oedipus.
My mother, she didn't appreciate Chafed Elbows, I'll tell you.
Jesus.
I said, "It's only a film." She said, "I don't care what it is."
[chuckling] "How dare you."
[song continues]
[Downey Sr.] We were having fun figuring out how to focus a camera.
None of us thought we were doing something that had an audience.
I know I'm robbing the cradle, but at least it's my own.
[Downey Sr.] Then suddenly, I got this little review in The New York Times.
The next morning, there was a line around the corner
for this little film in 16-millimeter.
[producer] What was inspiring you to make these movies?
[Downey Sr.] It was unique. It was different.
I mean, where else could you be doing something like making a movie,
and you've never made one before?
[producer] Can you hear that?
[sirens wailing in distance]
It all fits.
-[producer] What, the siren? -Yeah.
[producer] Okay, okay. Did people try to ascribe meaning to your movies?
Oh my God. I hope not.
[male voice] Would you people mind if I joined you?
-Come on, baby. -[male voice] Oh yeah?
Let me get my duds off here.
Move over, champ.
-Lemme in there, huh? -[woman] Mmm.
[Downey Sr.] We didn't know what we were doing, but suddenly the films
started getting better or weirder.
["KHJ Radio Beds" by Jack Nitzsche playing]
[Downey Jr.] After Chafed Elbows,
Sr. and Elsie, my mom, they were just always writing.
I think it's been a very creative day.
[Downey Jr.] There was this flow of people through the house
for dailies and writing sessions.
The time spent with him was perfectly, wonderfully,
deliciously insane.
I'm in the middle of a nervous breakdown.
[man] Well, do it somewhere else. We're busy in here.
[Lear] With an odd, odd sense of humor,
he is so much his own man,
so much his own artist.
[Arkin] There's a kind of benign nihilism through his work.
Just the freedom of it.
You didn't know where the story was gonna go.
You didn't know if there was a story.
There was a sense that each moment was allowed to play itself out
until you're hysterically laughing.
They'd moved whatever little crib I was in
into the area adjacent to where they were screening dailies.
So I got very used to falling asleep to the sound of clapboards.
It's almost like I was being programmed.
This one is Robert in a crib.
-[producer] Did you put him there? -It must have been me.
[Downey Jr.] And I just remember that cacophony of creativity.
Lots of cigarettes and weed and booze,
but mostly laughter.
If you don't give me those 12 H-bombs, I'm gonna drain your gold for ya.
That's right, man, 12 H-bombs, or I drain your gold for ya.
[gun fires]
One of the things I liked best about him as a filmmaker and as a director,
he'd just let me go wild.
[gasps]
I might add a few improvised words or gestures, and I remember him saying,
"I don't know what it means, but I love it."
[Arkin] I don't know how he came up with his casting ideas.
I couldn't figure it out 'cause they didn't seem like actors.
I didn't know what they were.
It's like he went down to the Bowery half the time
and just picked up people who were half in the bag.
But they were wonderful,
just a wonderful bunch of un-actory-looking people.
What's going on?
You gotta draw the line somewhere.
[Downey Jr.] If there was one undercurrent that was really shifty,
it was either, "We're flush," or, "We're broke!"
It was never like, "We're stable."
By "flush," I mean 500 bucks in the bank.
[man 1] We're ready to roll over here.
I made one with just stills almost 'cause we couldn't afford film.
[man 2] You can't direct nothing.
[man 1] If it wasn't for me, you'd be on unemployment with the rest of the scum
of the underground cinema.
[Downey Sr.] The early ones, I made so cheaply.
Just working a job somewhere, I could get it done.
[song continues]
[Downey Jr.] Things were just grounded enough
that a very charismatic guy
who had different ideas and curiosity
could create a new standard of filmmaking.
And I think he's someone who has preserved that curiosity
well into his autumn years.
[music ends]
[ship horn sounding]
There it is. There it is.
See it?
It's kinda reassuring to be in a city and see this, huh?
If you had to introduce this scene,
I wonder whether you would come down
or pan down from a building to this
or pan up from something here.
I don't know. Both, maybe, right?
That's an interesting image there. Wow. Like a Western.
["Stranger on the Shore" by Jack Nitzsche playing]
[Downey Sr.] Look at 'em all. There are nine of them.
How could they have all come out of one duck?
Look at Mom, perusing the whole joint.
[Downey Sr. chuckling]
-Remember the ducks you shot? -[producer] Yeah.
They've grown. They're big.
We'll see 'em this afternoon if you want.
They're big.
I hope you guys are as happy as I am with this footage.
I think you need stuff other than about movies, for balance.
[producer] So it's not just about the films?
-Right. -[producer] Who is this guy?
Exactly.
[producer] Who is this guy?
Uh, I'll never know. [laughing]
[song continues]
[Downey Sr.] There they are.
Oh my God.
Wow. Heh!
I've never seen this thing with a real tiny one and a big one
all within a lifespan.
-Boy, I'm getting dizzy. -[producer] Oh shit.
-[Downey Sr.] Whoa. -[producer] Can you go to the bench?
-[Downey Sr.] Yeah. -[producer] All right.
-[Downey Sr.] Oh my God. Oh boy. -[producer] That was a close call.
[inhales sharply, groans]
[producer] We gotta figure out how to get him back upstairs.
-No, I'll be all right. -[producer] You'll be able to walk up?
As long as you stick cl--
-relatively close, I'll be okay. -[producer] Yeah.
I… I think I have to face the, uh, idea of my problem
and just cut away to the shakes that I get sometimes.
You just see that going on.
And Rosemary, when it happens in a restaurant or something,
she just… she'll just go over to me and go…
[slaps other hand]
[chucking] …and it calms down.
-Yeah. -[producer] What is that?
[Downey Sr.] The Parkinson's.
I just thought… [spluttering]
…you know… [spluttering]
…there's a certain way I have to eat now. Otherwise, the shit's all over the floor.
So,
let's face it.
[phone dialing]
[line ringing]
-[prolonged exhale] -[Downey Sr.] Good morning.
Hi.
-[Downey Sr.] How are you? -[in sad voice] Sometimes I wonder.
[Downey Sr. chuckling on phone]
Tell me everything. How ya been?
Um, okay.
[hesitating] Okay.
Is it a struggle?
Is it challenging? Is it weird? Is it scary?
On a certain day, any of those.
You know, I do think that that should… that should be part of the film.
Oh.
-I like that you have this project. -[Downey Jr.] Me too.
I don't know why. It's… it's creative
and, uh, soothing to me on so many levels.
Oh, yeah.
It's exciting because it's not like anything else.
["Summertime" by Charles Mingus playing]
Okay.
[Rogers] With Parkinson's, you lose a little bit of something every day.
But he's so fully focused on this film.
It's obviously energizing for him and exciting for him.
[Downey Sr.] It'll be on the left if it's on this street.
This might be it.
[Rogers] Looks like it.
[Downey Sr.] Could be.
-[producer] Bob, where are we? -[Downey Sr.] Great Jones Alley.
Not Grace Jones.
We paid a bum $50
to lay down in a heap of depression.
And then we did the scene.
And he said, "Let's do it again," when we finished. [chuckles]
That was nice. I do remember that.
Wow.
[producer] What was the scene?
It was a scene where there's… She's doing a commercial for…
Actually, she's just so great-looking, nobody cared what it was.
["Eclipse (From Putney Swope)" by Charley Cuva playing]
You can't eat an air conditioner.
[Downey Sr.] When I decided to make a film about an ad agency,
I think this is the quickest I wrote anything.
I was having so much fun.
If we use c-c-creative foreplay
before we penetrate,
we'll b-b-b-b…
[man 1] Bypass?
-[man 2] B-b-b-b… -Looks like.
-[man 2] B-b-b-b… -Sounds like.
-[man 2] B-b-b-b… -How many syllables, Mario?
-[man 2] B-b-b-b! -How many syllables, Mario?
B-b-b! [groans]
[Downey Sr.] It's about a white ad agency
where the head of the agency dies and has a heart attack.
His board of executives take his rings and watches and so forth,
and they have to vote in a new chairman of the board.
The rules are you can't vote for yourself,
so they all vote for the one Black guy in the ad agency,
thinking nobody else will vote for him, and he's elected.
-Swope. -My father would have wanted it this way.
He dug you very much.
Your father was a horse's ass.
He goes up to the head of the table and says, "The changes I'm gonna make
will be minimal."
[Swope] I'm not gonna rock the boat.
Rocking the boat's a drag.
What you do is sink the boat!
[Downey Sr.] Cuts over his back, and there's 40 Black people sitting there,
and the movie starts.
I hear the film is really funny. I would say that anyway, even if I hadn't.
[crowd laughing]
-But, uh… but I really do. -I hope the film's more than funny.
-Do you? -I hope it has some sting in it too.
-As a window cleaner, forget it. -[funky rock music playing]
Put soybeans in it for protein,
and we'll push it as a soft drink in the ghetto.
There is no revolution the way you're running this joint, man.
Now, when is something gonna happen?
[Downey Jr.] Putney was right in the middle
of all of that civil rights turmoil.
How did that concept come to you?
-I was working a job. -[Downey Jr.] Mm-hmm.
[Downey Sr.] And the Black guy working next to me said,
"You make more money than I do, and we're doing the same thing."
-[Downey Jr.] Right. -[Downey Sr.] That did it for me.
If I give you a raise, everybody's gonna want a raise.
And if I give them a raise, we'll be right back where we started.
[Downey Sr.] I didn't think anybody would come see it, but, boy,
I… I didn't know shit.
["Born to Be Wild" by Steppenwolf playing]
[Downey Sr.] It seemed there was something going on
that hooked into whatever was socially going on
and what the movie was.
So it was a nice mirror.
♪ In whatever comes our way… ♪
[Downey Sr.] It wasn't really about the movie
as much as it was about society.
♪ Take the world in a love embrace… ♪
[Downey Sr.] If everybody could get turned on
to having a sense of humor about themselves,
I think we could get over a lot of things that we take very, very seriously.
We could approach the serious matters in a different way,
like war and poverty and all the things that are going on.
[crowd shouting]
♪ Yeah, darlin', go and make it happen ♪
♪ Take the world in a love embrace… ♪
[Downey Sr.] "Robert Downey makes vile movies."
Life magazine. Oh, really?
-[producer] What'd you make of that? -[Downey Sr.] That sounds all right.
And this, did you get that one?
[producer] Putney Swope was inducted into the Library of Congress?
That was wild that that film got in there. That's usually Hollywood films.
[Downey Jr.] What did that mean to you
when you started getting the approval of the filmmakers
that were, for lack of a better word, important in that generation?
That must have meant something.
Yeah, it meant that I could do another film.
Kinda like you belonged and you were being validated in some way?
Well, that's a pretty interesting theory.
[laughing]
Nice deflection.
[laughing]
He knows that I'm attempting to understand something
and that I'm turning a camera on him.
What he's trying to do is turn the camera onto what it is he's trying to say.
What that is remains to be seen.
What a bay over here, my God.
It's beginning to look like Rockaway.
["Besame Mucho" by Artie Shaw and His Gramercy Five playing]
[producer] Bob, why did you wanna come out here?
When I was 15, I used to come here in the summer.
It was known as the last stop on the subway.
Oh my God, you've gotta get that.
This is great.
[song continues]
Boy, that was wild.
[woman] Can we say "cheese"?
[both laughing]
My friend.
My nutty friend. [laughing]
[woman] How long you guys been married?
Fifteen hundred years.
[women laughing]
[producer] Do you ever feel like you're living in one of your films?
Right now.
[laughing]
[producer] Were your films this loose?
Sometimes, yeah. But this has been the freest.
Yeah.
Everything turns into everything sooner or later.
Things will turn into something else, which turns into something else.
And then something doesn't work. You throw that out.
It's called "follow the film."
["Summertime" by Charles Mingus playing]
I still feel, on some level, like he's fucking with us.
He knows that there's a bit of interplay between capturing a story about him
and also him keeping himself interested in the process.
And cut.
Wow! No transition required.
-[Downey Sr.] What's the difference? -I know what you're doing now.
-[Downey Sr.] What? -I know.
And because I believe he is connected
to some sort of creative deity,
my job is to figure out what it all means.
[producer] What's this scene we're watching?
It's just, uh, the walk towards the, uh, door,
the out… outdoor door.
-[producer] How does it fit in the movie? -Who knows?
[producer] You directed this one. What's the po-- What's the plan?
[assistant] Yeah, your plan is what we need to hear.
Uh, I think we should split into two camps,
and both editing things are leading towards the same thing,
the editing of this film.
But you might get something out of one that you won't get with the other.
I think I should rent an apartment in this building
and get some equipment in here.
Let's go.
["Modern People" by Roger Neill playing]
[Downey Jr.] You like the idea of getting a shot of the gate opening, right?
[Downey Sr.] If we can.
[Downey Jr.] I think we can. We're gonna go down the road here.
I'm taking you down the garden path, Father.
[Downey Sr. laughing]
And the farther away you are, the better.
[Downey Jr. laughing]
[producer] Did you guys… Did you take a road trip together?
[Downey Sr.] Yeah, across the country once.
-From Santa Fe down to LA. -[producer] Yeah.
What was that like?
I was in charge of the hash pipe.
[Downey Sr. laughing]
That was interesting.
I don't know if it belongs here, but I like it.
[Downey Jr.] Uh, we need a Jack Nitzsche cue right here.
[Downey Jr. vocalizing "Rumble" by Jack Nitzsche]
[producer] So, from that, would you go into one of your films?
We could, or we could stick with this a little longer.
["Rumble" by Jack Nitzsche playing]
-[Downey Jr.] Don't go too fast. -[Downey Sr.] Whoa, wait a minute.
-[Downey Jr. laughing] -[Downey Sr.] Wait a minute. Jesus.
[Downey Jr.] His cut is very much a work in progress.
It is not all that linear.
It's like if you give a director no deadline
for when his project is supposed to be finished
or really any narrative for what it should be to begin with,
it can be a little, uh, kooky.
[narrator] Fourth floor. Solarium, aquarium, sanitarium,
drunk tank, celebrities, children's diseases, going up.
[Anderson] Bob doesn't seem to be that worried about confusing the audience.
-Um… -[crowd laughing]
[Anderson] And that's why it's great.
There is a kind of pattern to the way that he does things
and that you either get with or you don't.
But, man, I'm, like, you know, smitten with it.
[Downey Sr.] You know, Paul, he loves films
more than most people I run into.
When I met him, I couldn't believe he knew the '60s more than I know.
And he's a wonderful writer.
Action.
Come on, come one, come on! All right? All we need is the tapes, Burt.
No.
He asked me to pop in one day and fuck around on camera, and I did that.
We can't pay the price of the demo tapes
unless we take the demo tapes to the record company and get paid.
Hello? Exactly!
That's not an MP. That's a YP,
your problem!
I had fun with Paul Anderson, doing it. That was fun.
It's no mystery that Paul Thomas Anderson
is probably the son my dad wishes he had had,
and they like to rub that in my face.
["Pound Score" by Charley Cuva playing]
[Downey Sr.] Paul says something something,
and I said, "I gotta get out of here. I gotta go to my train."
And he said, "I'm coming with you." And I said, "What?"
[producer] Was this for a documentary or…
[Downey Sr.] You never know with him what he's doing.
He might have been doing something like that.
I haven't heard about it since.
[Anderson] Let me get another battery before we go up.
For my pacemaker?
[Anderson laughing]
[laughing]
[Anderson] I mean, if you hang around with Bob to get to know Bob,
he's got the most fantastic sense of humor,
and he just has this incredible confidence
to just commit to his rhythm of telling a story.
And so, as another filmmaker, it's invigorating.
And it reminds you, like, to have that confidence,
to have that trust in yourself.
It's hard to walk, never mind hold the camera.
[Downey Jr.] Dad used to take the train. Last ride you did was with PTA?
But since, none, and no flying.
[Downey Sr.] Yeah, I don't fly anywhere. I'm paranoid.
[Lear] He was sensitive to the train.
He was sensitive to getting on and off the train.
[chuckles] He was sensitive to weather.
[Downey Jr.] Are elevators still a problem?
[Downey Sr.] Oh yeah.
-That's some… Don't… -[producer] Oh shit.
I told you I was stuck in here for an hour and a half one night,
and I couldn't get out.
There was a Russian guy on the elevator.
Kept saying, "Are we gonna be all right?" I said, "How the fuck do I know?"
[song continues]
[Downey Jr.] Do you think all these neuroses, ultimately,
are part and parcel to creativity, or do you think they're just a drag?
-Little of both. -Yeah.
-I think we have some new characters. -[Anderson] Yeah.
The hour before the crash landing, it was scary.
Not the landing. We… we made it.
But ever since then, I haven't been able to face it.
[Anderson] So what are the chances you're gonna get
in two plane crashes in your life?
I'll never find out.
I'm too scared.
That crash landing,
that… that happened when I was in the army.
["The Last Race" by Jack Nitzsche playing]
We were on a C-47, which is a two-engine plane.
And about an hour or so in, one of the engines stopped.
And a lot of us were really young.
Every time we'd see something coming close to the window in the plane,
it looked like the end. It was a tree or something else.
And finally, this sergeant guy started saying,
"I don't wanna die. I don't wanna die. I don't wanna die."
And we're looking at him, like, "Are you fucking nuts?"
"You're supposed to be helping us."
Anyway, the plane landed, crash-landed.
Nobody died. Nobody got hurt. Just banged up a little.
He walks off the plane like nothing's wrong.
We started calling him every name in the book.
So he got a hold of me and put me in the stockade. [laughs]
[producer] Were you always a troublemaker?
Yes.
[producer] And so why did you think going in the army would be a good idea?
Who knows?
I used my stepfather's name to go in the army underage
with a fake birth certificate. Downey.
Elias is the actual blood name of both my dad, Robert Elias,
my dad's dad, my grandfather, also Robert Elias.
He changed it because, when he joined the army underage,
he did not feel that having a Jewish-sounding last name would be good,
whereas an Irish last name should be fine.
You spent a little time in the stockade here and there
'cause you can't stay out of trouble.
What would you call that chapter?
[Downey Sr.] "The Beginning."
-[Downey Jr.] Really? -Yeah.
Tell me why.
[Downey Sr.] The boss in the stockade said,
"Don't just sit around here."
-"Do something." -Yeah.
[Downey Sr.] And he said, "Here, take this pad and write something down."
Wow.
So I just started scribbling, and suddenly, some of it made sense.
A random act of kindness from your jailer.
You started writing.
Yeah, that's right.
[Downey Jr.] Did any of that wind up being the beginnings of any of your early work?
Yeah.
I had no idea.
["Pound Score" by Charley Cuva playing]
Why do I have to die?
I never hurt anybody.
[Downey Jr.] In Pound, there was definitely
a more dramatic backdrop.
[Downey Sr.] Yeah. Eighteen dogs waiting in a pound,
and they have an hour to live.
[Downey Jr.] If people are playing dogs, then really the movie is about people.
Me, him, and Fido are gonna bust out of here.
Who's joining me?
[Downey Jr.] It had a lot of tension in it too, which was great.
[Downey Sr.] In hindsight,
turned out that it was much better than I thought it was.
Seeing as how Pound was my official debut,
I think it's your most underrated of all.
[Downey Sr. laughing]
["Score from Pound 'Lame Mutha'" by Charley Cuva playing]
♪ Don't ya say hello ♪
♪ Hello… ♪
[interviewer] Is this the picture Bobby Jr. made his debut in?
[Downey Sr.] That's right.
-[Interviewer] At the age of what? A baby? -[Downey Sr.] Let's see. It was 1970.
So… five.
I… I think we asked him to do the part 'cause we couldn't get a babysitter,
and we knew that part was coming up.
And we, uh, summoned him. It was easy.
That tornado scared me so much, it made my hair disappear.
Have any hair on your balls?
I'm afraid to look.
I didn't know what the line meant, that I was asked to say,
which is, "Got any hair on your balls?"
-Oh, to the bald guy. Bald-headed dog. -To the bald guy.
-He was playing a Mexican hairless, right? -Yeah, yeah.
He seemed a little shy when he said it. It almost… But it worked beautifully.
You know, there was no need for a second take.
[man] Gimme that.
[producer] When you first put Robert on screen, did you recognize that he was…
[Downey Sr.] Everybody did.
Everybody was saying to me, "Oh, where'd you get this guy?"
It's that first time that's everything.
You could tell that he knew what he was doing.
He didn't need my help. He was possessed.
He was tap dancing in the driveway out there,
and subconsciously, I knew he never had to go to school.
This guy's gonna be an actor.
[Downey Jr.] When I saw cameras, I perceived it as it's time with my dad.
Sometimes, like, I… He would be walking by,
and he went out and grabbed the camera and said, "Don't move." [laughs]
I was like, "Whoa!"
["Two Tons of Turquoise to Taos Tonight Score" by Nitzsche/Sanborn/Arica playing]
[Downey Jr.] It probably felt to me what it felt like to Exton,
running around in the background and hosing me down with pool water
and, you know, asking,
"Are we shooting the movie again tomorrow?"
[Downey Sr.] That's Robert and his sister fighting in the kitchen.
I was just there with the camera on the other end of the thing,
just thinking of nothing, and this broke out.
[producer] How was Sr. as a father?
Um,
complicated in that most of his attention
was on the process of chasing the muse.
I knew that we were not like the other families.
I used to like to take him to films that I thought would be interesting
and not think about, "He's a kid."
In fact, they wouldn't let me into a film--
Oh, La Grande Bouffe.
["Petite Chanson De L'amour" playing]
[Downey Sr.] Four guys in Italy get together every year
and start feeding each other.
It gets so out of control. It's disgusting.
I forgot that Robert was with me, and I went to go see it,
and the person taking tickets says, "He can't come in."
"This is X-rated."
I said, "Come on."
So I called the distributor,
and he says, "Put that guy on. How dare he."
Blah blah blah blah blah.
And the ticket-taker takes the call and says, "You can go in now." [laughing]
I'll put it this way, we weren't watching Fantasia.
[Downey Sr.] In fact, I took him to see The Harder They Come.
[reggae music playing]
[Downey Sr.] We went in, and it was raining that day,
so there were leaks in the theater.
And we were sitting on the back of the seats.
And when we left there, we said, "Wow."
"There was nobody else in the theater but us."
And that, somehow, made it even better.
I remember a lot of theaters that were greasy and weird,
but it was this idea that films kind of brought us together
and, to this day, still do.
[Downey Sr.] I got… I got plenty of that.
Let's see if he doesn't hang himself on his sound wire first.
[Downey Sr. laughing]
Do you mind if we show the crew in the documentary?
-Not at all. -[Downey Jr.] How come?
Because it lets everybody know we know what we're doing.
Right.
They might not like it, but we know what we're doing. Yeah.
It's pretty clear we know what we're doing here, right?
We have to know something.
Here's where we can talk about, uh, three generations of, um…
Bug jobs.
Of bug jobs.
What is it that I say to you when you're getting on my nerves?
Hey, hey, don't be a bug job.
[Downey Jr. and Sr. laughing]
-And that comes from Dad telling me. -Don't be a bug job. Hey!
For the very first time, you tell Pop to not be a bug job.
-Hey! -Mean it.
-Hey, don't be a bug job. -There it is.
-You don't be a bug job. -[Exton giggling]
What we're gonna do is we're all…
the three of us are gonna have a quick espresso.
[Exton] I… I drink coffee.
You can have a little sip of mine, but don't tell Mom.
[laughing]
[Exton] I never tell Mom.
[continues laughing]
[Downey Jr.] Here's a good one.
Sr. as I remember him circa 1971.
So I would be Exton's age.
That's Pop, and that's my mom, Elsie.
And then that was another take.
This is from Greaser's.
That's from Greaser's Palace, yeah.
Most holy one, let me see.
Messiah. Messiah.
If you feel, you heal.
["Stranger on the Shore" by Jack Nitzsche playing]
[man on ground] I can crawl again!
I can crawl again!
[producer] What was the genesis of Greaser's?
[Downey Sr.] Well, this lady wanted me to make a movie.
She said, "What do you wanna do?"
I said, "Father, Son, and Holy Ghost pop into a Western."
She said, "Fine. Go write it."
She gave it to her husband, who had a lot of money.
He read it, and he said to me, "Is this gonna make any money?"
I said, "I don't think so," and he said to his wife,
"He's charming. Give him the money."
At least he was honest about what he really was thinking.
It didn't look like a Christ figure parachuting into a Western
is gonna make a dime. [chuckles]
[Downey Jr.] This time you got to really take advantage of the landscape.
The cinematography starts getting pretty lush,
and you have stunts, you have wagon wheels,
and you literally built Greaser's Palace
and then blew it up.
[song continues]
Do not make us doubt and speculate. Say to us why you are here.
[Downey Jr.] I know you like leaving the meaning up to the audience,
but there's deep, deep, deep spiritual messaging
in that movie
that even as a grown-ass man, I'm still trying to figure out.
-I'm glad you said it. -[Downey Jr. laughing]
[both laughing]
[song fades]
[Nancy] Bob, how are you?
I'm all right.
[producer] We know him as a provocateur and stirring the pot with his films,
but is there something surprising, as a sister, your take on him?
I always say that he's an innocent to me. He's an innocent.
-That's a new one. [chuckles] -And a purist.
-It's good. -No, it's true. You are.
Even as a person, you are.
He's irreverent in his humor, but he reveals so much. He's so honest.
Give me a hug.
-[both kissing] -[Nancy chuckles]
[both] Mmm.
[producer] When you saw Robert Jr.,
did you see similarities in father and son?
[Nancy] Oh yes.
[producer] You know, I feel like Robert got a lot of his humor from his dad.
Yes, but also, his mom was a riot.
["Pound Score" by Charley Cuva playing]
How are ya doin'?
[man] Are you the Virgin Mary?
Just call me Mary.
[Wolf] Elsie Downey was a great actress,
who could have done incredible things on her own,
but chose to work with her husband.
She was extremely talented, lovable.
The sweetest person you'd ever wanna meet.
The only thing about these low-budget films
is that all the action is behind the camera.
[producer] With Elsie, was it clear right away
that, "Hey, we're gonna actually make these films together"?
No, I met her way before I made films.
Just off-off-Broadway plays.
[Nancy] When they met, it was like…
[mimics explosion] It was over.
They were just… they got each other.
They would laugh. They would have us laughing.
I mean, she was just such a natural comedian.
So for Robert, coming from this couple,
he had to be who he was.
[producer] Did you feel like you learned from your mom as an actor?
Pretty much everything, yeah.
Seeing her being directed by Dad,
she was wildly devoted
to whatever creative stream of silliness he was onto.
And I remember when we were doing Greaser's Palace,
like, she was climbing up these sand dunes over and over again.
She had no problem doing something that's exacting.
-[producer] Did you put her in a lot? -Anything we could.
'Cause she'd do anything. She'd try anything. She knew what to do.
Oh, there's the moment when she discovers her son is dead.
And that's Elsie as the mother in Greaser's Palace.
She can't find her son, who's Robert.
[sad music playing]
[Downey Jr.] I played a boy who got his neck slit by God,
whose mother finds him.
[Downey Sr.] At the end of the film, he's brought to life again.
And I think he was so excited to do a scene with his mom.
[Downey Jr.] Greaser's, I had a lot of pride of
'cause I was old enough to know I was in it,
and I'm starting to feel like a little bit of a movie brat.
[Downey Sr. laughing]
And it was a good time.
I mean, I wanna thank you. You got us out of town.
[Downey Sr.] That was fun. That was fun.
-[Downey Jr.] Was that a happy time? -[Downey Sr.] It was.
And then it all fell apart.
[sniffing loudly]
[inhaling]
[sniffing loudly]
[woman] Whoo! Ah!
[woman inhaling] Ah!
I comes to a fork in the road…
[woman laughs]
…with a spoon in my nose.
[woman laughing hysterically]
[producer] What advice would you have given yourself at that point?
Don't touch drugs.
["Two Tons of Turquoise to Taos Tonight Score" by Nitzsche/Sanborn/Arica playing]
I have a job for you. Two tons of turquoise to Taos tonight.
[Downey Jr.] The title sequence
looks almost like a heist-type thing.
And all these characters are getting together,
but one guy walks in wearing a full wet suit.
As he's unhooking his weight belt, he goes…
[Downey Jr. and actor] "What about Larry? He's into tacos."
[Downey Jr.] And he snaps his belt open.
It was trying to transcend
even being something that people could say was a movie.
["Two Tons of Turquoise to Taos Tonight Score" by Nitzsche/Sanborn/Arica playing]
You basically said that the plot was Sanborn's saxophone…
[laughing] …which, to me, is so next level.
-That's true. You do follow the sax. -Yeah.
If you wanna hang on to something.
[female narrator] Let your mind go. Let your body go.
Let your wallet go.
[Downey Sr.] On this one, it was such a weird, disconnected thing.
I would maybe shoot for an hour and go home.
You know, 'cause I was tired or fucked up or whatever.
[Downey Jr.] I think the goal pattern was in a really weird place,
and so maybe that was justifying the usage.
My dad was down in the basement with his editor
seemingly for two years,
and I was like, "That seems like a long time on post."
You know, we knew what was going on down there.
[producer] Was that era fun? Was it a struggle?
I was a drug addict.
Mainly cocaine and, uh, marijuana.
Total, total insanity.
[laughing hysterically]
All right!
[Downey Jr.] I knew that the work
had kind of started becoming more of an excuse.
And then it wasn't but shortly after that
that my folks broke up.
[song ends with sax flourish]
[Downey Sr.] Turn around. Wave goodbye at the door.
You're all fucked up with your umbrella. Say goodbye, and go inside. Bye-bye.
-[chuckling] [Elsie] Bye-bye.
-[Downey Sr.] Have a nice nighty tonight. -[Elsie] Have a nice nighty tonight.
Yeah, even though we split from each other,
we spoke to each other a lot.
[Downey Sr.] Good night. -[Elsie] Good night.
-[Downey Sr.] And have a nice nighty. -Have a nice night-- Oh!
-[Elsie laughing] -[Downey Sr. laughs while watching]
Yeah, it does bring back big memories.
[trainer] Deep breath.
[inhales deeply]
[exhales sharply]
-[groans] -And reach. Reach backwards.
And pull again.
You're breathing, right?
-I hope so. -[laughing]
Yes.
When I first came here, it was, like, a little tight.
-Yeah, that's a good way of saying it. -[both laugh]
[Jaime] We call on God a lot, right?
Like, God this and, "Oh, God, one more squat."
"Oh, God, another celery."
It's really funny.
-[Downey Sr.] Where is this guy? -[Jaime] We still haven't seen him.
No, every time I read the front page of the Times,
I say, "Where is this fucker?"
[Jaime laughing]
-[producer] That's pretty good. -It's great.
[producer] Then where? We have freedom.
Is there anything right wh… where you cut out?
[producer] Here we have…
Well, Robert must have thought something because he… he's a total workout guy.
Maybe he thought, "I don't wanna end up like my father."
-["Unfunky UFO" by Parliament playing] -That ain't bad. [laughs] That ain't bad.
[producer] Add it?
Yeah.
♪ You've got all that is really needed ♪
♪ To save a dying world From its funkless hell… ♪
See, who knew we'd cross the bridge that I hadn't crossed today
because I thought I could get away without walking, and now look.
[laughing]
[producer] Do you love New York?
Oh yeah.
I get inspired here.
How do you make a film in Los Angeles? We've seen every possible shot.
The same corner. The same freeway.
It's all different out here.
♪ You've got all that… ♪
Look at this over here.
[Downey Sr. laughing]
Jesus.
Look at the light now. My God, that's wild.
I guess this is crying out for a 360.
Wrong tripod.
The other good thing about any project in New York,
if you wanna go that way,
is to, once in a while, bring in the real sound we talked about.
-Turn it up. Don't say a word. -[song fades out]
Just happens.
[ship horn blaring]
[siren in distance]
[cars honking]
[siren continues]
[producer] Where do you go from there?
I'll look in here… [laughing] …and see if there's anything.
Maybe… We'll… we'll see.
Maybe, um, we break into the middle of Robert and me.
-[producer] Mm-hmm. -[Downey Sr.] Maybe.
[producer] Yeah, let's try it.
Hi, is this Dad?
[Downey Sr.] Yeah.
Is this Sonny?
[Downey Jr. laughing] This is Sonny Boy.
[Downey Sr. laughing]
Hey, man.
[Downey Sr.] So, what do we wanna talk about?
[Downey Jr.] Let's talk about LA today.
-Oh my God. -I'm sorry.
We're gonna do it all, baby.
Oh my God.
[Downey Jr. laughing]
["Voices of Spring, Op. 410" playing]
[Downey Sr.] When you first get there and never been there,
it's kinda romantic because of all the literature.
But you soon find out it's a lot of lip service about,
"We really wanna make a film with you," and this and that.
"Let's see how it goes," and that kinda stuff.
The first question they ask you, usually, out there, when you make a film,
"You think it'll make money?"
You know, friends of mine would say, "You're doomed."
["Diggin' In" by Harold Faltermeyer playing]
[major] You're outcasts,
embarrassments to your families and your communities.
Disgraces.
Something wrong with you, boy?
No, it's just a little chilly in here.
Don't you mean, "It's just a little chilly in here, sir"?
-[boy] Yes, sir. -Well, say it.
It's just a little chilly in here, sir.
-[major] Say it again. -It's just a little chilly in here, sir!
-Say it again. -It's just a little chilly in here, sir!
That's what I thought you meant.
Was Up the Academy ostensibly the first studio movie you ever did?
[Downey Sr.] Yeah. Disaster.
And I was thinking, "Get me out of here."
Tell me everything.
[Downey Sr.] It was supposed to be a military academy for kids.
The script was about 16-year-olds.
It'd simply be more effective if they're ten years old.
He said, "All the kids should be kids. We shouldn't be casting teenagers."
Now, that would have been a nightmare, and it was very impractical.
Was the studio gonna let it happen? No.
They said, "Are you insane?"
I said, "What do you mean? I just wanna change the ages."
"Well, you're not gonna do that around here."
I learned how to get along with people by doing what was asked of me.
No shit.
[Downey Jr.] Up to that point, he had kinda been protected.
People knew he was special,
and you wanted to help him do the next version of him.
And I think the one real studio-film experience he had,
where the studio kinda tells you what you can and can't do,
if you're an artist, it's crushing.
And I think he thought, "Great, let's party."
You're gonna get the Robert Downey movie you deserve.
[Downey Sr.] Some guy said, "If you keep talking like this,
we're gonna fire you,
and you're not gonna get final cut no matter what happens."
I said, "Okay, that's fine by me,
just as long as I get final cut on the cocaine."
And that was almost the end of me out there.
[song fades]
-You did not give a mad fuck, did you? -No.
How would you describe that period of time?
[Downey Sr.] Fifteen years of total fucking insanity.
Boy, man.
You know, I think we would be remiss to not discuss its effect on me.
Yeah, boy, I could sure love to miss that discussion.
[Downey Jr. chuckling]
["Don't Need a Gun" by Billy Idol playing]
[Downey Jr.] When I did Less Than Zero,
that was right around the time that I began.
It was obviously not
autobiographical for me,
but certainly what was similar was young folks, drugs, the '80s.
[producer] When you heard he was doing that film, what was that like?
[Downey Sr.] He was funny. He said,
"I got a part in a legitimate film." [laughs]
You can't stay here. Live your life anywhere you want but not here.
-I'm your son. I'm sleeping here. -Get out. I'll call the police.
[Downey Sr.] But I loved it. It's a tough one, but it's great.
-It was just a wild era. -["Modern People" by Roger Neill playing]
[Downey Jr.] That whole world gets tied in with creativity.
We were all altering our consciousness with substances.
I was just kinda playing a game of just wanting to self-soothe
or just stay loaded
rather than deal with the fact that things had gone off the tracks a little bit.
And, honestly, more than anything, I look back and go,
"It's shocking
that a single movie came out finished."
But that didn't stop we Downeys.
["Pound Score" by Charley Cuva playing]
[man] Hey, Reed! Will you stop with the food?
Rent is due. We gotta go to work. Come on.
-Work before we eat, all right? Come on. -[Reed] Okay. All right!
-I just made that salad! -Enough with the salads!
[Downey Sr.] The movie wouldn't have gotten out without him.
That's reality.
[interviewer] Yeah. I mean, he's become a big movie star.
-[Downey Sr.] Yeah. -[interviewer] He still takes direction?
Well, he loves fooling around. Yeah, he does.
Whoo!
-Gotta go, Ma. -Okay, honey. Do what you have to do.
[interviewer] There was certainly a sense of… of family,
that people are having fun, and it's… it really translates.
[Downey Sr.] Good, I'm glad 'cause it was,
and it was a very good period of my life 'cause I met Laura.
I am hip to your shit, shithead.
I think Sr. was afraid I would be a terrible actress,
so he thought, "Throw an accent on, and maybe they won't notice."
-[Downey Sr.] That's not true. -[Laura laughing]
[Downey Jr.] Thank God for Laura Ernst.
Yeah, I agree.
She showed up, and I feel like it was just the kind of energy you needed
at that point in your life.
Mm-hmm.
And it seemed like you just got healthier
and started kinda taking care of yourself
and settling into and away from that whole drug-culture life
that we all got stuck in.
-Hi, Dad. -Hi.
And I remember it very, very, very profoundly.
[Downey Sr.] A lot of us did things and thought it would be hypocritical
to not have our kids participate in marijuana and stuff like that.
So we thought it was cute to let 'em smoke it and all that.
It was an idiot move on our parts, a lot of us,
to share that with our children.
I'm just happy he's here.
-[Downey Jr. chuckling] -That's all. [kissing]
[interviewer] Ever worried he wasn't gonna be here?
Many times.
[Downey Jr.] Even though it took me another 20 years to get
my own shit together,
you and Laura became this very, very, very stable force for me.
What is your memory of those years with Laura?
A lot because, uh, sh… she got sick.
And were you with her when she got the diagnosis for Lou Gehrig's?
[Downey Sr.] Yeah.
How does one process that with your… with your life partner?
It was… it was time to grow up,
to think of somebody else first.
[Arkin] We spent some time with him and his wife, Laura.
He was as loving and tender
with her as any human being I've ever seen.
It was a lesson
in how to deal with somebody who's… who's passing.
I sometimes think of…
["Fourth of July" by Nathan Halpern playing]
…any of the stuff we feel guilty about or what we did in past relationships,
and then to be able to have an opportunity to, um,
make that living amends so fully to… to… to a partner
and to completely commit to being by their side
through every step of a devastating illness.
And, uh, it's crazy. You really showed up.
I hope so.
[computer clicking]
[computer voice] What I have is not contagious.
What is it?
[computer clicks]
[computer voice] ALS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis,
also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.
I love you.
Just another one of God's little victims.
Like me.
[Downey Jr.] Very much like when Chaplin lost a kid,
and then the next movie he made strangely was titled The Kid,
and it was a way for him to process the grief in his personal life.
That's exactly what you did in Hugo Pool.
["Forever Young (Instrumental)" playing]
You're gonna beat this.
[computer voice] I like the way you think.
[Downey Jr.] Your movie was representing everything
from Laura's illness
to my addiction to your turnaround.
Since you're gonna outlive me, will you forgive me for all the drugs
and bad examples that I'm leaving you?
[Downey Sr.] It's a collage of pain.
And so you… you try and go through it the best you can.
-[song continues] -[no audible dialogue]
When you lost her, you stayed clean, and I was still out there,
and you were just telling me to stay on the planet and stay vertical
and not give up and all that stuff.
You weren't exactly some karma-free man.
Let me not fucking… You know. Let's not stretch the truth here.
But that was kind of a super significant thing.
Well, it's nice to hear it that way.
You deserved it with what you went through.
Yeah.
All right. That's worthy of an evening's nonsense.
[Downey Jr. laughing]
["What Is Life" by George Harrison playing]
[Downey Sr.] After the bad films that I directed out in California,
friends of mine would say, "Get out of LA now."
Did I tell him to get out of LA?
But it didn't mean he couldn't visit. Now he doesn't even come and visit.
He won't get on a plane.
♪ What I feel ♪
♪ I can't say… ♪
[Lear] Between New York and LA,
there's no question he should be… [laughs]
…in New York.
I think he's happier for being out of LA.
I think everybody's happier when they get out of LA.
The land of broken dreams.
[Lear] And it may be that New York is sufficiently complicated
for somebody to be their unique person.
He was born, you could say, to be in New York.
♪ …without your love ♪
♪ Tell me who am I ♪
♪ Without you ♪
♪ By my side ♪
[song ends]
[Downey Jr., Exton, and Avri singing] ♪ Happy birthday to you ♪
[Downey Sr.] Aw.
♪ Happy birthday to you ♪
We'll call him Bob Sr.
♪ Happy birthday, Bob Sr. ♪
♪ Happy birthday to you ♪
Exton, how's school?
It's good.
-Oh. Oh! He's taking a sip of my coffee. -[Susan] Hey, guys.
Hi, Susan.
Hi. Happy birthday.
Thank you.
Are you properly celebrating, Sr.?
He is. He's got some friends and close associates over.
They're having a ball.
We might wanna get a couple of women in this film also.
Yes.
If Susan would do it, she could play your wife.
I'm pretty serious about giving as many people an opportunity
in that casting as I can.
-[Susan scoffs, chuckles] -But we'll see.
I mean, we can always come back around to the house favorite, yeah.
By the way, every day I think about your dad.
Thank you. Me too.
Me too.
Yeah, it was a tricky first Father's Day without a father.
Boy, was he funny too.
Yeah.
You look good, Pops. I'm glad there's some levity there,
and you're surrounded by good people, and--
I don't know any of them.
[Susan and Downey Jr. laughing]
Now, say we wind up out in the Hamptons again together.
Are there any scenes to be shot
or images of stuff you want
that you're not seeing in the project right now?
That German folk song.
I knew you were gonna say that,
so I'm gonna have to get an accompanist to learn that song,
and we're gonna have to figure out where to shoot that.
-[Hayes] Hello? -Hey, it's me.
[security gate beeps, buzzes]
[knocking on door]
[Downey Jr.] Pop, this is for you.
[playing "Fischerweise" by Schubert]
[singing in German]
[ringing bell]
Just, let's try it from the top again. It's just coming a little…
[playing "Fischerweise" again]
[singing in German]
When I was 15, I entered the Kiwanis solo festivals,
singing Schubert's "Fischerweise,"
and it was the first time that Pop ever noticed something I was doing,
outside of his movies, had some merit.
Or I think I got an honorable mention.
And, uh… and then it's been something I've returned to several times.
And tell us what his reaction was.
[exhales] He seemed pleased.
-Yeah? -Yeah.
And how did that change your life going forward?
[continues "Fischerweise" on piano]
[singing in German]
[Downey Jr.] There's something nostalgic about it.
There's something beautiful about the song.
And then there's my dad's oddball point of view
of all the things he could have pulled out or remembered
that he would want me to repeat
40 years later.
[Downey Sr.] Uh, it will really help the film tremendously
when, suddenly, you just come out from behind a tree…
[Downey Jr.] Yes. -…and sing this thing.
[singing in German]
[piano and singing continue on monitor]
[Downey Jr. and Hayes laughing on monitor]
[Hayes] Let's do it again.
[starts playing "Fischerweise" again]
[singing in German]
[piano melody morphs into "My Life" by Billy Joel]
[snickers]
♪ …my life ♪
♪ Go-- ♪
-[Hayes laughing] Here we go. [Downey Jr.] I'm gonna nail it this time.
[Downey Sr.] It all looks sweetly narcissistic.
[producer] Do you see a place for this in our cut?
Absolutely. [chuckles]
[playing slide whistle]
[Downey Jr. and Hayes laughing on monitor]
-Can you do that a little more? -[producer] Like, repeat it?
[Downey Sr. laughing]
No, I'm just being happy.
[producer] Let me try.
[Rogers] He completely focused on the edit.
He sat up for hours and hours,
which was something he hadn't done in a long time.
It's just a big source of joy for him. You know, it really is.
It's… it's everything for him.
-[producer] That's pretty good, dude. -I just wanna see it again.
-[producer] Let's see. -[playing slide whistle]
Have you changed as a filmmaker, or do you still make stuff the same way?
That's a good question. I really don't know.
[producer] What was the last film you worked on?
[Downey Sr.] It was a documentary down in Philadelphia
that I'm very fond of.
It's about a park called Rittenhouse Square.
After I sat in the park and saw all the weird characters,
I said, "I'm in."
[classical music playing]
[Downey Sr.] And we spent a year in there to get the different seasons,
just studying people.
The one thing we learned was
trust anything 'cause anything will happen.
And sure enough, the first day, we ran into a ten-year-old violinist,
who was great, and she became the main focus
of the whole year in the park.
[playing classical music]
[producer] How did making the documentary compare to, like, your other films?
Well, I like… as I said earlier,
I like the idea you don't know what's gonna happen.
["The Room Upstairs" by Stephen Edwards playing]
[Susan] Sr., you know, he's battling a horrible, horrible disease
that I had to see my dad go through.
And so at this point,
it's all just love of the time we have left.
And I don't know if Sr. has come to terms with some of his behavior from back then
or how it relates to Robert.
But what I know now is, you know, this is somebody who loves his kid.
[Downey Jr.] It's the quintessential Sullivan's Travels.
Setting out to do something real and important,
and what if what we'd been doing all along
was every bit as important as it needed to be?
For me, this feels like trying to close the circle
on that whole patriarchal thing.
[song continues]
[Downey Jr.] And making peace with all the
upside and downside of it and sideways-ness of it.
And then saying, "Okay, you're a grown man now."
[no audible dialogue]
[song ends]
Lean and mean, Bob. Lean and mean.
[producer] That's a whole new pass, man.
[producer sighs]
[laughing]
Well, you don't have to worry about when you're coming back now.
It's whenever it happens, it happens.
Thanks for doing this. It's big deal.
Great. You did some great work.
[producer] Yeah.
Looking back… [indistinct] …he says it's been a great experience.
His definition of a producer is a guy who gets stuff done.
["Theme from A Summer Place (Instrumental)" by Percy Faith playing]
[indistinct chatter]
[indistinct]
Yep, yep, yep.
Heading the 90 miles in town. He's pumped.
This is year three
of shooting the Daddy doc.
I'm excited to see Grandpa.
["On the Road to Find Out" by Cat Stevens playing]
♪ Well, I left my happy home ♪
♪ To see what I could find out ♪
♪ I left my folk and friends ♪
♪ With the aim to clear my mind out… ♪
[exhales]
The plan for today, we're gonna keep shooting the "Sr." documentary.
The main reason I wanted to be here was because I wanted to see Grandpa.
So, I wanted to see him
so we could, sort of, have memories.
And… so when he passes, I can say
I got to spend some time with him.
♪ Na, na, na ♪
♪ Well, in the end I'll know ♪
♪ But on the way I wonder ♪
♪ Na, na, na ♪
♪ Through descending snow… ♪
[Downey Jr.] Hi, thank you, sir. We're here for Downey. Thank you.
♪ Na, na, na ♪
♪ I listen to the wind come howl Telling me I have to hurry ♪
♪ I listen to the robin's song ♪
♪ Saying not to worry ♪
♪ Ah-ooh ♪
♪ So on and on I go ♪
♪ The seconds tick the time out… ♪
Hi, Dada.
Whenever, uh, you'd rather we're not rolling, just let us know.
Otherwise, we're in your face all day, all the time.
[Downey Jr. chuckling]
[producer] It's good to see you in person, man.
Is it… is it warm out?
[producer] Cold. Cold and rainy today.
Ooh, well, that's good… good for photography.
[Downey Jr.] Exy, when you're ready.
[song fades out]
[Downey Jr.] We're gonna give you three takes
at asking him the question, all right?
So you'll hit… come here, hit him with the line.
-Hey, Exy. -Hi.
Okay, he's ready. In three, two, one, go.
Hey, Sr.
Have any hair on your balls?
[Downey Jr. suppressing laugh]
Would you repeat that question?
Have any hair on your balls?
Perfect.
[Downey Jr. laughs] Now, give him the answer line one time, Dad.
Exy, hit him again, and then you do Larry Wolf's "I'm afraid to look."
[Exton] Hey, Sr. Have any hair on your balls?
Do I what?
[Downey Jr. laughing]
He refuses to do his own answer.
[Downey Jr. groaning in delight]
-All right, you are free. -That was very fun.
[Downey Jr.] Exy's having a ball, dude.
This is, like, the best trip he's ever had.
[Exton] It's definitely up in, like, the top ten.
[Downey Jr. and Sr. laughing]
[kissing]
You need anything?
Where are we?
[Downey Jr. laughing]
This is the last day, uh, that I'm likely to see him for a while,
so what's my move for him, for me, just to kinda…
You know, it's weird because I know that I'm…
uh, capturing it.
[therapist] Oddly, it's sort of like what your family does.
You guys make art of your lives.
It's weird. It's natural. Like, it brings me back where it's like,
whatever's unfolding, funny or tragic,
it's happening with a 16-millimeter camera going,
and, uh, we can reflect on it…
[chuckling] …40 years from now…
[therapist] Yeah.
…when somehow or other it makes sense.
But then there's some part of me that feels like I'll… [sniffling]
I'll miss something.
[therapist] Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
You know, just 'cause the window's closing a bit, it seems.
["Fourth of July" by Nathan Halpern playing]
[therapist] Is there anything that you feel like you need to process
in relation to the possibility of not seeing him again?
I just don't know, to be honest.
-[therapist] Yeah. -You know?
Um, it's kinda disorienting,
but, uh… [sighs]
…dude, it's a lot.
[therapist] It is a lot, man. It's a lot.
[sighs] Well, the nice thing is
I haven't had this appreciative an experience of New York in ages.
And getting to see it through Exton's eyes,
the third-generation POV,
is pretty cool, you know?
[therapist] Yeah, but I can't help but also notice
the difference between
the reliability of his support system, you know?
Your dad rebelled against something that needed to be rebelled against,
and then you were raised in that rebellion.
Yeah.
[therapist] Letting you use drugs as a child.
And it's like… it's kinda fucked up!
[Downey Jr.] Battered but not broken.
[therapist] Yes. And then here we are.
It's like, "How do I go out without feeling like I missed something,
you know?"
Is there anything you need to say to him?
I just… I don't want to…
[song continues]
-I don't wanna do the wrong thing. -[therapist] Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[sighs]
Papa.
Give us a… give us a "one, two, three," so we can check your mic.
-Who? -[producer] "Who." Great.
[Downey Jr.] Perfect.
While we're still hanging out and seeing each other,
I just wanna try to stay close
and get closer and closer and closer and closer.
-Yeah, great idea. -[Downey Jr.] You know?
I was gonna ask you all these questions about just…
-Any… anything. -[Downey Jr.] Um… Yeah?
I don't really even know how to talk about this, but I just want…
your point of view, um,
before we are done.
Is there anything you want your kid to know?
[Downey Sr. chuckles]
[Downey Jr.] What's so funny?
Well, in the Hamptons, my kid has a house and a kid.
Like, two kids, three kids.
And, uh, we… we find if we pick
days when the light's not great, that's good for us.
Right.
'Cause by the time you shoot it…
it's a good time to make any kind of film you wanna make.
[moaning softly]
[Downey Jr.] When you're not here in the here and now,
where does your mind go to most?
Is there a period in time?
Or is there something that's occupying your thoughts?
From what I can remember,
before I answer your question,
I would say the…
[clattering]
[sighs gently]
Charlie Parkinson's disease.
[Elsie] I have this here dream where I'm working in this here jazz group.
And right in the middle of a very groovy set,
just as I'm starting my solo…
[Downey Jr. and Elsie] …I keel over and die from Charlie Parkinson's disease.
[Downey Sr. laughing softly]
[Downey Jr.] You called it, baby.
[exhales]
[brush clattering]
Is there a pen over there?
A pen? You want a pen or a pencil?
Pen.
Yeah.
Ah, the old pen.
You love a bit of pen-and-paper action.
[Downey Sr. exhales gently]
[moans softly]
I can pop it for you if you want.
Here.
Thank you.
-[Downey Jr.] Are you scribbling? -Yeah.
[Downey Jr.] Nice.
[pen scratching across paper]
[Downey Sr. groans, exhales gently]
Oh, and Robert…
had been a…
a little nervous 'cause he has all these other things he's doing too,
but you can see what he's focusing on is this.
When he called me up to ask me to…
He says, "Go slow."
[exhales]
Had you two met before?
[Downey Jr.] You mean Jr. and I?
Yeah.
[Downey Jr.] Yeah, we're getting to know each other.
[paper rustling]
[Downey Jr. sighs]
["From the Morning" by Nick Drake playing]
♪ A day once dawned ♪
♪ And it was beautiful… ♪
So we'll probably head back home in a little while.
Even though Sr.'s just kinda napping,
should we just go sit in there for a while before we cut out?
-Yeah. -Okay.
♪ Then the night she fell ♪
♪ And the air was beautiful ♪
♪ The night she fell ♪
♪ All around ♪
♪ So look, see the days ♪
♪ The endless colored ways… ♪
So we'll probably let Sr. rest, and…
and then we'll see him, uh,
down the road a piece.
[Exton] Yes.
♪ And now we rise ♪
[Downey Jr.] I love you, Pops.
♪ We are everywhere ♪
♪ And now we rise from the ground ♪
♪ See she flies ♪
♪ She is everywhere ♪
♪ See she flies all around ♪
♪ So look, see the sights ♪
♪ The endless summer nights ♪
♪ And go play the game that you learned ♪
♪ From the morning ♪
[song fades]
[Downey Jr.] We had no overt agenda with this project.
I had a sense of what it might be,
and I knew that part of it was always going to be
the end of his life.
Is it a father-son story? I don't think so.
Is it about what it is to be an artist? I don't know. Maybe.
Is it a contemplation of death?
I think it's kind of turning into that,
and not in a morose way,
but just in a "we're here, we do stuff, and we're gone."
And, um, I love him for what he did. I love him for what he didn't do.
[softly groans]
[crowd droning] Ah.
[man] He has come!
[droning halts]
I bring you a message.
Exactly six miles north of Skag Mountain in the Valley of Pain,
there lives an evil devil monster.
His name is Bingo Gas Station Motel Cheeseburger
With A Side Of Aircraft Noise And You'll Be Gary Indiana,
and he loves to hurt people.
The last time I saw Bingo Gas Station Motel Cheeseburger
With A Side Of Aircraft Noise And You'll Be Gary Indiana,
he told me what he wants to do.
He wants to come down here and kill each and every one of you.
But I said to him, "Bingo, wait a minute."
And the reason I said that is because I believe in you people.
I believe you can do the job.
I believe you can help each other.
I believe you can make this world a better place to live in.
That's it.
["Gone" by The Dose playing]
♪ When I think I've got it figured out ♪
♪ Pressure reveals unexpected routes ♪
♪ That lead back into agony's core ♪
♪ My peace of mind is a civil war ♪
♪ I'm getting ♪
♪ Closer to the day I'm gone ♪
♪ You know life goes on ♪
♪ I'm getting ♪
♪ Closer to the day I'm gone ♪
♪ Until it's ♪
♪ Over ♪
♪ You know life goes on ♪
[song fades]
Take a card, Mr. Greaser.
All right. Put it back anywhere.
-[man] This it? -No.
-[man] This one? -No.
-[man] That one? -No!
-[man] This one? -No!
-That one? -No.
-[man] That it? -No.
-That one? -No!
-This one? -No.
-That one? -No.
-This one? -No!
-This it? -No.
-That it? -No!
-This one? -No.
-Here it comes! -[Greaser] No.
-This one? -[Greaser] No.
-That one? -[Greaser] No.
-[man] This one? -[Greaser] No.
-[man] Is that it? -[Greaser] No.
-[man] This one! -[Greaser] No.
[crickets chirping]
-[man] That one? -[Greaser] No!