Inside Robert Downey Jr.'s Inspiring Journey: From Jailbird to Oscar Glory

Robert Downey Jr. walked away with the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the megahit movie Oppenheimer.

It was his the very first time he took home the golden statuette. "I’d like to thank my terrible childhood, and the Academy, in that order,” Downey Jr. joked in his acceptance speech. “Here’s my little secret: I needed this job more than it needed me.”

He also thanked his wife of almost 22 years, Susan Downey, for her support. In Oppenheimer, Downey Jr. plays Lewis Strauss, who was an original member of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and a political opponent of J. Robert Oppenheimer, developer of the atomic bomb. In the film, Strauss openly challenges Oppenheimer’s past ties to communism and continues to advocate for the hydrogen bomb.

"I had a previous fair understanding of Strauss because I was fascinated with the mechanics of warfare, particularly in the Pacific theater in World War II,” the actor said. The glorious moment when he posed with his Oscar marked a high point for Downey Jr., 59, who has had an almost lifelong struggle against drug addiction, which landed him in prison and all sorts of legal troubles — a life he’s now left behind.

“If I didn’t believe in myself, there’s no way I would have made it this far,” he said. Like a true Iron Man, Downey Jr. resurrected his career after spending hard time behind bars and kicking drugs. The actor says his drug problems started in childhood. When he was just six years old, his father, film director Robert Downey Sr., who was also a drug addict, gave him some pot to smoke.

Downey Jr. said marijuana was “a staple, like rice” in his home growing up, and drug abuse became a strange bond between father and son. “When my dad and I would do drugs together, it was like him trying to express his love for me in the only way he knew how,” said Downey Jr., whose dad died in 2021 at age 85.

Downey Jr. made his acting debut at age five in the comedy Pound (1970), and then at seven appeared in Greaser’s Palace (1972), both directed by his dad. In the ’80s, he was part of the "Brat Pack" and worked in teen films Weird Science (1985) and Less than Zero (1987).

In 1992, he portrayed Charlie Chaplin in the biopic Chaplin, for which he won a BAFTA Award and was nominated for an Oscar. Downey Jr.'s downward spiral began in June 1996 when he was stopped for speeding, and police found cocaine, heroin and an unloaded .357 Magnum in his truck. Just weeks later, he was cited for trespassing and being under the influence of a controlled substance after wandering into a neighbor’s house and passing out in a bedroom. In August 1999 the actor became Inmate Number P50522, sentenced to three years behind bars at super-tough Corcoran State Prison in California.

But four months after leaving prison, the actor was busted in Palm Springs with cocaine and Valium — and dropped from TV’s Ally McBeal. After another arrest in 2001, he spent a year in a court-ordered drug treatment facility. By then, Downey Jr. was homeless, too great an insurance liability to get work and nearly broke.

His road to recovery began in 2003, when Downey Jr. met his wife-to-be, producer Susan Levin, on the set of Gothika. He has a tattoo on his arm that reads “Suzie Q” in tribute to her. The couple married in 2005 and have a 12-year-old son and a nine-year-old daughter. “I said, ‘You know what? I don’t think I can continue doing this.’ And I reached out for help,” he said.

Other movie gigs followed, and in 2008 he landed the role of Tony Stark in Iron Man. Director Jon Favreau said, “Downey wasn’t the most obvious choice, but he understood what makes the character tick. He found a lot of his own life experience in ‘Tony Stark.'" The movie was a blockbuster. His star-power rose in the 2008 flick Tropic Thunder. Then it was on to two Sherlock Holmes movies and The Avengers in 2012.

And now all his hard work has reached the pinnacle of success with an Oppenheimer Oscar!