Robert Downey Jr full interview: star walks out when asked about past

I want to say there's less pressure and there's more camaraderie. Do you feel you have to carry the Iron Man movies in a way that you don't when there's lots of them? It just comes down, it's just a matter of schedule. I mean, you know, when you're in every shot of something, you know what I mean? Well, it's kind of like doing your own show, you know what I mean? It's not like someone saying, hey, I'll do the next interview for you, you know? So you forget, you know, you want to still make sure that you have your arc and your moments, but you're not responsible for the narrative of the whole thing. So it's kind of great. And I genuinely like all the other folks, so that helps. Were you a superhero fan as a child or as a teenager? I suppose as a Westerner, as an American, it's just so part of the kind of kid culture, you know? I wasn't like a nerd about it or anything, you know? But I'm definitely a, you know, all the old TV stuff and the comic book stuff has influenced me. Iron Man is such a different superhero, though, isn't he, in that he's self-made, he's arrogant in a very appealing way. Was that what you brought to it or was that there? It was always inherent in the comics. And, you know, Stan Lee, back in the 60s, it was really kind of a Vietnam era sort of fabrication, you know? And he was under pressure to keep coming up with new characters. And so he kind of did this mosh of things. And who'd have thought all those years later that it wound up being a character that differentiated this universe from other comic book worlds. And here we are, you know? What difference do you think it makes that he is a self-made superhero? I think more than anything, I always played it like he's a guy who's in big business that you may or may not have a judgment on. He's an arms dealer. And the metaphoric significance of having a piece of shrapnel from one of your own warheads blow up and then you actually have to build something to save your own life. I always thought that that to me is just kind of a new myth. Could you explain the idea behind Ultron? I mean, what is the real fear here? In Tony's mind, the idea behind a team like this is for the team to retire because the odds are that one or all of them are going to get bumped pretty soon. So his idea is pretty altruistic. He's thinking, how can I put us out of business and still have a big bouncer at the door of our vulnerable little planet? And that's why he does what everybody fears, which is unleash this monster. Right. Well, clearly he doesn't do it to unleash a monster. It's co-opted. There's a couple points in the script that I think is the reason that Age of Ultron is actually a worthy companion to Avengers and in some ways a better film, in that it takes the conventions and it twists and retwists them in a way that's kind of clever. Just as an audience member, I'm like, oh, that's really cool. I appreciate the kind of complexity of it. And what do you think of the obvious parallels being made between you and Iron Man? At this point, it's natural. But, you know, if you'd asked me in the first Iron Man, I'd be like, that's me. And now I'm realizing I've realized that. Well, of course it's not. I'm not saying that I'm such a fantasist, that I felt like I was Tony Stark, but I felt like it was my persona. But none of us are our personas. But he's becoming a much more likable character as well, isn't he? I suppose so. A better man. Yeah, he's becoming a better guy. You know, in a way that you are as well, I suppose. Sure. I mean, what I'd really like to I'd really like to ask you about a quote you gave to the New York Times. And I don't want to pry, so if you don't want to talk about it, that's fine. But what you said to the New York Times once was it was about it was after your incarceration. And you said, you can't go from a 2000 dollar a night hotel suite to a penitentiary and understand it and come out a liberal. And I just wondered what you meant by that. Well, the funny thing is, and I appreciate your your point of view, things that you said five, seven years ago were things you said in an interview that made sense to you at the time. I could pick that. I could pick that apart for two hours and nobody would be no closer to the truth than I'd be giving you some half assed answer right now. I couldn't even really tell you what a liberal is. So therein lies the answer to your question. The statement sort of stands by itself, doesn't it? I mean, does that mean you're not a liberal or that you came out of prison not being? Are we promoting a movie to me? The thing is that it's I'm certainly not going to backpedal on anything I've said, but I would I wouldn't say actually I wouldn't say I'm a Republican or a liberal or a Democrat. I think when I was talking to the person who was doing the interview that day and and that just happened to be my opinion. That's the nice thing is you can have opinions and they kind of change and flow. Yeah, well, that's that's life and that's growing old, I suppose. Yeah. I mean, you say we're promoting an interview, promoting the movie. I mean, obviously, you're doing a promotional round of interviews, and that's why we're talking about the movie. But we also would like to talk a little bit about you. And I don't know how comfortable you are, you know, talking, talking about yourself at the moment. You have as much time as anyone else. Well, yeah, well, OK, well, then let me just ask you a few more questions and you can answer them if you want to and not if you don't want to. I mean, well, I think we've got three more minutes on our on our agreement. We're starting to jump a little bit. You better get to your next question. You the reason I'm asking about the past is that you you've talked in other interviews again about your relationship with your father and the role of all of that in you know, the dark periods you entered and taking drugs and drinking all of that. And I just wondered whether, you know, you you think you're free of all of that or whether that's still something. I'm sorry, I really don't. What are we doing? Well, I'm just asking questions. That's right. Bye. Are you? I'm sorry. It's OK. Yeah, you're right. Do you feel OK just getting a little dinosaur? No, no, look, I don't want to do that.