- 11 minutes ago
The superstar actor joined producer-wife Susan Downey for a conversation with THR's Scott Feinberg as part of inaugural festival LA3C that was attended by Tom Holland, Zendaya and Adrien Brody.
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00:00thank you guys so much for being here while everyone collects themselves after that i know
00:10i i've seen it i shouldn't have watched the last 20 minutes before coming out here i can't handle
00:16it it gets i saw both you and scott like yeah i was like don't look disassociate look at the
00:22audience that's how i kept it together well let me let me start um robert by asking you at this very
00:30moment in just about every country in the world except for russia and north korea people are able
00:38to watch this film and are watching it on netflix i'm sure they're bootlegging and bootlegging this
00:43is a uh this is a global story yes yes your dad's and your face are on billboards all around this
00:50town do you know how surreal that is you think you're just driving past westwood and i'm like
00:55there's a picture of me and my dad and of course the news that i just mentioned about uh the nbr and
01:04so i guess just to begin with what would senior have made of the final film and of this moment for it
01:13well first of all from the afterlife he goes what phase of grief are you in the promotional phase
01:22what are we doing um
01:26i think he would have been really happy that it worked as a story i think he would have liked the
01:31way particularly towards the end that we were able to we had to otherwise we'd just be in ribbons all
01:36the time you know um and we weren't trying to make some tear jerky thing just the way it unfolded
01:43was really evocative so um chris smith our fearless director who's standing as far back
01:50and out of the way as as he can god bless your heart chris um toward the end we were finding these
01:57things to kind of counterbalance it like that that that scene from greaser's palace that kind of summed
02:02up what dad's world view was and um and and we were just kind of trying to strike the right balance
02:09i mean susan was like there's a certain point she was like you know this needs to work this can't be
02:14a non-sequitur documentary about your non-sequitorial dad like this needs to work for an audience dude
02:21and i was like oh yeah you guys better figure out how to do that well uh susan i'd like to before we get
02:30too uh deep into senior which we will do i want to first ask you if you can tell us about the
02:36origin and mission of team downey um because i think that this um this people should know is not
02:45the first really special movie to or project to come out of what you guys have done we'll talk about
02:51stuff that you're working on in a bit but just where did team downy come from well as you just saw
02:58in the movie robert came from a family where this is what they do and it's always expected to be
03:03the family business and so when we met i was running somebody else's production company and we met on a
03:11project and then continued to do a couple more location romance would have been a huge hr issue
03:18nowadays because she came at me crazy i'm not even gonna dignify that with the truth didn't feel safe
03:31good lord um anyway uh so basically you know what it came down to is we loved working together and we
03:42were able to do it on the sherlock movies obviously um and we did on kiss kiss bang bang the first one
03:48was gothica that's the one that we went on and at a certain point though if i was going to be you know
03:54the kind of boots on the ground producer i like to be and i was going to be in one place in the world
03:58and he was going to be an actor another place it wasn't going to work we've seen that many times in
04:03this industry and so we decided if we're going to do this and it's going to last let's do it together and
04:08we were very like-minded in what we like to do which is we do like commercial things we like things
04:15that people will see because you can put a lot of time and effort into something you know and if it
04:21we just hope the most people can appreciate it so between that and in general just trying to always
04:28find things that um don't fit pre-existing mold um and we are fairly picky and boutique-y and what
04:36are you looking at like this little navy corduroy number you're wearing and people said like oh
04:43what's team downey doing next what's team downey and then we started thinking about what should we
04:46call our fucking stupid production company and then it was right there in front of us that's
04:51team downey there it is 12 minutes on that any last question honestly it was an excuse to continue
04:58to work together that's probably the quickest way to answer it no well and that actually leads into
05:01what i was gonna ask robert to talk about which is it is interesting there's there are some very
05:08notable differences between you and your dad which we will uh talk about but one thing that you can't
05:15help but notice is that both you and he really did enjoy in his case did in your case do enjoy working
05:23with your significant other on making movies which not is not the case for everyone in this business at all
05:29um you any thoughts on on that i mean i just want to know where she is at all times um i don't know
05:40all relationships come down to trust and so there's two kinds one is that you have this separateness
05:45within unity which is you know he does that i do this and then we come together and we have our
05:50separateness and i think um for us we just we figured that we do better just sticking it out together you
05:58know yeah i've done several forays outside of the purview of susan downey that went all right but
06:04it's my preference you are my preference great so susan uh the the origin story of this one
06:13um is interesting because first let's just note that chris smith who we've who we've brought up uh and
06:19who is with us and i think deserves a round of applause yeah let's go chris he's literally in the back
06:25corner where he likes to stay three time emmy nominated filmmaker sundance grand jury prize uh
06:34winning documentary filmmaker who has made films about everything from jim carrey to firefest
06:39and uh and that is quite a range um but i think that can you talk about how
06:46you guys first came to even be talking about doing something together and i know that the way chris has put
06:52it um the i guess the suffix changed from the the idea changed along with the suffix so susan yeah
06:59well two things kind of converge um one was that robert and his dad have been kind of playing around
07:06with with kevin ford who's one of the um actually many titles on this he's the one that dad hijacked and
07:13said hey forget this garbage they're doing it's the real project um but they were working on something
07:19having to do with a different hollywood father-son duo that really wasn't gaining much kind of ground
07:25and um and then emily uh ford she um who works at team downy and they're both here both producers on it
07:32um she met with chris through a friend and chris had mentioned as you just said that he was potentially
07:38interested in doing something on on robert and um they were all excited they had started like
07:43conspiring and and then they brought it to robert and he's like no but uh i'll do something on my dad
07:48and so it allowed i don't entirely think that i was opposed to the idea of doing something on me well
07:53good because that's what ended up happening anyways okay it seems out of character
08:00yeah but much like you know we're creating the narrative we all have to agree on what the story is
08:05here okay but think about it think about it it's just like your dad you needed to deflect okay so
08:11it's like uh yeah you can't do it on this guy but it's really about i'll be honest with you this whole
08:16project sadly started off for me honestly it was a it was an avoidance pattern i was like how do i
08:23deal with the fact that this you know this larger than life character who i spent you know so many years
08:29i don't want to say in the shadow of but so influenced by and i know he's not well and like and then
08:35it turned into this like gordian knot because he became so obsessed with the project and susie's
08:40like what is this project and i was like i don't know she goes what are we doing and i was like i
08:44don't know but we can't stop and um it was uh it really could have gone to hell in a handbasket well
08:56i would guess if you i don't want to interrupt before if you wanted to finish the story of of chris's
09:01pitch but then i'm gonna come back to what you're saying about basically finding the movie as it went
09:06along which is a very senior thing to do but uh but susan just so the idea was the pitch was junior
09:14that wasn't gonna go and so um i guess did you guys have to get was it a challenge to get senior to
09:23sign on to this well i just i just want to say something too in context that you know chris smith and
09:29kevin and emily and susan and i and and chris's partner ryan this really wound up becoming this
09:34super small in-house thing between these three couples that were all coming back to this project
09:40we were doing it wasn't the only thing we were doing we didn't even know really what it would amount
09:45to but um susan's dad who literally was just he and senior were good friends but he was very different
09:54he was like he was in the peace corps and he worked for sears and he was this nice you know jewish
09:59perfect dad from the midwest like i don't he might have smelled pot once but i mean anyway and he passed
10:07away horribly without much fanfare right at the top of the pandemic so if it comes back to you know the
10:14team downy thing and these three couples it all became this kind of meditation on how how do we
10:20we there was process there was everybody all of us lost something in these last three years a person
10:27a close friend a sense of normalcy whatever and so it kind of became this touchstone for all of us
10:34and so it was already about so much more than what we what we thought this title says you know when we
10:40started and to answer the question um you know because she's really good at answering the questions
10:46and he's really good at interacting was there a question okay yeah um no but to get you asked
10:52about senior and how easy it was to get him and that's why i mentioned that other project so he was
10:57already like actively looking to be engaged to have a project to be doing and um so i think that helped
11:05and then the second thing which you all see in the movie is pretty quickly it didn't matter what we
11:09wanted this was his way to do that project so he ended up kind of participating because he had the
11:17way he was willing to participate which again now in reflection makes sense because this is a guy who
11:24always communicated just through his movies much more than ever articulating any responses
11:29and so to do it by making a movie or his version of it it just kind of all ends up making sense and the
11:36idea that he would be making his own thing simultaneous to you guys where did who even
11:43came up with that because i think you both said it was a pivotal moment to keep him engaged he did
11:48right oh so he was he said oh yeah it was the care it was the carrot and the stick yeah basically
11:54and i you know and it had a budget that's for sure
11:57well you know there's uh you're you're very acquainted with the world of of superheroes uh
12:08there is the um hashtag release the snyder cut i think we might have released the senior cut uh
12:16is that any is there any chance we'll see the just separate maybe it's an extra or something where we
12:21could see um even more of what he was going for yes and you should all definitely drop acid before
12:28you watch it because it will make perfect sense and but that's the other weird thing with any
12:34art or in any work you you know it's that question that chris asked do you think people try to ascribe
12:40meaning you know we all try to ascribe meaning to everything so if i saw the senior cut at this point
12:46and we are cleaning it up and we are in the process because we've gotten so much feedback about like
12:51yeah that was a really great documentary where's the senior cut we're like oh he's still he's still
12:57gonna make us do this project um so i i think we will and i know that uh kevin is game as a train to
13:05get into it and um you know chris smith was like let's just get this out and make sure this works
13:10first before we uh well the senior cut's very specific you saw snippets of it in the show and it
13:16is what what's what's kind of cool about it is clearly he was using the process of making it to
13:22revisit everything to revisit all of his work and to put it together and he had very little interest
13:29in what we were capturing for the actual documentary so you know there's the interview with alan arkin for
13:37example which is great and we have a lot of it and then there's a moment when arkin gets very
13:41distracted by a kumquat like bush and decides he needs to go have one and that's the only part
13:46in senior's cut of the arkin interview this is like his buddy too like you know there's a 20 minute
13:53sit down that's like that's all garbage you know when he gets up to pick the kumquats
13:58yeah it's like our outtakes and like a bunch of his movie stuff but you know there's there's method to
14:04that madness well and i wonder because that's not it's not like that's inconsistent with the way he
14:10told stories forever um when you were a kid robert and your dad's making these movies you're a part of
14:16some of them um was it what did you make how did you feel about these movies because on the one hand
14:23yes he's a he's a increasingly known guy who's making a living making films at that point but
14:31the are these films that you would you know invite your buddies over to check out or or
14:36how did you feel oh yeah and like back in the day when i was like on saturday night live or whatever
14:41like anthony michael hall and all these guys are like how many syllables mario like we were all
14:46downy one-liner fanatics but no i don't know why i was just thinking about this you know
14:51he comes from this kind of formless he's figuring out how to even tell a story and then the narrative
14:58for putney swope and greaser's palace and pound these are more really straightforward movies they
15:02do have a beginning middle and an end and you could ascribe meaning to them and then in that
15:06kind of hazed dilapidated state of the the drug culture kind of disintegrated again and there's
15:13something about those those sweet spot films where they were you know they had a distributor and they
15:20were reviewed and they were actual movies from beginning to end you know um that the the non
15:29there was part of him that i think maybe struggled with narrative even though he hit it a few times
15:36and he started in the void and kind of had these these these stories and then kind of went back into
15:42the void because he had to just get his own his own just life together and he had you know a lot of
15:48growing up to do as we all do well and as as susan noted it's not like he made movies like that and
15:55then out in the real world would give soliloquies about what they were about it was always a little
16:01cryptic right uh so was there a concern when you guys embarked on this that how much could you actually
16:08get out of him in terms of just being willing to talk about things i think we foolishly thought we
16:14could get a bunch out of them i mean i you know robert when when when covet hit and we there were
16:20all the lockdowns and start travel restrictions that's why we set up the zoom part of it um and
16:26sent him a like a gopro type thing and and kevin sort of coordinated it all and um robert would show
16:31up to each of those sessions like incredibly prepared oh yeah this was my like actor studio
16:37thing i had it all i was gonna get the answers out of him yeah and and whether it was a successful
16:42session or not he showed up just as prepared the next time and the next time so maybe we were a
16:47little charlie brown with the football but you know we were willing to to keep trying and i think that
16:53somehow when it all comes together we obviously and this is really chris's magic we do
16:59get a real portrait of him yeah well one thing that i'm sure i'm not the only person this has occurred
17:06to um is on the surface robert your career and his career kind of can look in some ways like polar
17:14opposites he he made of course uber independent movies that never reached a huge audience or made
17:21a ton of money yours have obviously done quite differently um and yet you have said quote with
17:29regard with regard to uh iron man is just one example quote favreau and i were essentially doing
17:35our version of a big budget senior movie close quote can you explain what you mean by that
17:42well i i mean first of all because not too many people were thinking that iron man was even going to
17:47have an opening weekend or or you know do much of anything so we were a little bit left alone it
17:54was a bit i find out more every day about how like how that thing was financed it was basically
17:59ready to be like written off if it tanked and so anyway it was the perfect thing where there were
18:05there were not a lot of um creatively aggressive eyes on us and by the time they gave it to us it
18:14was like that it was like you know united artists it was like the lunatics took over the asylum
18:18and we were you know i remember jeff bridges too he was like man it's like we're doing a we're doing
18:24a 200 million dollar independent movie man you know um and there was just that that sense of
18:31there of course it was much more organized strangely enough if you look on rotten tomatoes this is the
18:37best reviewed project i've ever been part of which is also surreal is that are you think it's you're
18:43being serious is it yeah wow and nothing not i mean you've done a lot of good stuff i'm surprised
18:49that's interesting um only by a few points did you look that up or was that like a headline or
18:56something how do you know this looked it up yeah i got a phone it's his home page yeah i know everyone
19:02thinks that i'm so like eccentric that i'm completely walking around in a bubble of unawareness you know i got a
19:09phone yeah google shit works sometimes so you've you guys have talked about an evening which i imagine
19:16was pretty soon probably after the first iron man when you're on the time 100 list yeah and you're
19:22allowed to bring or you're asked to bring someone who i guess inspired you yeah um can you recount
19:29what happened that evening uh first of all i was like uh they're serving dinner i was like yeah he's just
19:37oh i gotta wear a fucking tux huh great then he showed up and and i had this i think speech
19:44about being on his shoulders in the west village and you know all the characters that were around
19:49him and this and that and i said dad do you have any anything you'd care to add and he goes i'm not
19:55your father and the whole place cracked up and i was like god that was such a good one
20:02liar am i supposed to be that's kind of kind of insulting it's kind of great god that was just
20:10great yeah but you said also in the same speech because i just remember it because it's true in
20:14our household that wit is a commodity and so the fact that you i mean you should have seen it coming
20:20you don't hand him a mic i wonder i wonder if he was running through potential tag lines that night
20:27anyway the truth be told is you know tux or not or whatever those time 100 you know things are like
20:34he was really he was really happy that night wow that's great and there's some great photos that are
20:39still run from from of the two of you from that night now um a recent ap article about this movie
20:46and about you you guys uh included the line quote downey jr's genuine live wire performances surely
20:53owes something to the frenetic energy he had known on his father's sets close quarter and as we see
20:59you go back to age six and pound uh and many others do you think there's any anything to that that
21:06sort of the way you approach movie sets totally apart from him um and you know setting aside just
21:14the you know the iron man example but just generally there is a uh kind of uh different energy that
21:20you bring to things than many others do you think it comes from that uh i guess so and also my mom
21:25like i i say was a huge influence but you know then i got i got with the right partner i i'm actually
21:32a pretty diligent person like you know i i'm pretty disciplined and i she says i'd be a good first ad
21:39i take great pride in that um you know we we have to improve our gene pool somehow as we go along or we
21:49just we would all just phase out but here's here's what i would say though that because you grew up and
21:56it was always in the household and it was as you said perceived time with your dad and all of that
22:01what i noticed being on sets with you is that you want to have fun there regardless of what the subject
22:07matter is how dark the scene whatever it is it's like this is it's something that i learned from
22:13robert because i was always so goal-oriented and he's like it's actually about the process because
22:18this is what we're doing every day when the movie's done how much can you entirely you know control at
22:24that point there's a million things that can make it work or not work or whatever and so you have to
22:30like those days when you're on the call sheet you're showing up and i do think maybe you would
22:34have always been like that but i have to imagine that came from how you grew up and that it was just
22:39part of your life yeah sure oh thanks is that like a four on a ten one no i'm just giving one
22:47two-word answer to show i have verbal discipline well i'm gonna then quote to you something else you
22:53said this goes back to 1991 a magazine called marabella i don't even think it's around yeah it sounds
22:59made up go ahead uh you said quote my father's a lot more supportive than he is hard on me but he
23:06is always saying all right so so you made a lot of money great now what are you gonna do all right
23:12so you can do whatever you want so what do you want to say close quote do you still hear that voice
23:18in your head when you're considering projects or doing things is that something that despite however
23:23much success you may uh attain that does that go does that still uh remain there i mean whether it's
23:30my dad's voice or not i think we're always we always want to be you know appropriately critical of
23:36ourselves and we want to you know push ourselves to those you know uncomfortable areas or whatever
23:45is that an answer well let's let's expand even more though because when you now separate from him
23:51start having your own career and and success was he uh how did he react to some of the uh gonna get
24:01alone well no i mean honestly the the real thing was it was just it was just um it was just seat time
24:11of of i mean particularly once you know she laid it on the line i had to kind of finally truly get my
24:18shit together i mean then i was like oh this is like 20 times easier you just have to show up and do
24:24your life and be you know as as professional and thoughtful and have some sort of uh moral psychology
24:31and like everything's significantly easier on a related note um i don't get the sense just from
24:40interviews or things that i've seen that addiction is your favorite subject to talk about and yet in this
24:46film you uh and and by the way it certainly isn't your dad's either he has another great line in here
24:52boy i would sure love to miss that discussion which is um but was addressing that subject something that you
25:00really felt you wanted and needed to do while you could have that conversation with him or was that
25:06something that well it's incomplete if you don't and you know a documentary particularly you're working
25:12with chris smith you're not going to do something that's easily assailable for i i also hate puff pieces
25:17i also hate when i feel like someone is trying to there's so many examples of it right now where
25:22everyone's trying to get their narrative out there i won't give the examples don't say um but there's
25:29just so much of it that you kind of go that just reeks of bullshit and so can you feign not reeking of
25:35bullshit easily but also half the time i even forgot these cameras were rolling because i didn't even
25:41know if this thing was going to come out so i wasn't thinking about it the way you would where
25:46you're like well you'd better you know make sure that stupid fucking beanie you're wearing looks right
25:51on your i wasn't thinking about any of this it was very and i think chris and and kevin really set this
25:59this kind of culture of it just felt kind of like experimental maybe we'll use it maybe we won't if we
26:05if it doesn't make sense but yeah like like i said i because i was also just wondering where
26:10he was at with it and in the process of interviewing him i really like like you saw i remembered this
26:15huge turn he had where you know laura ernst got a lou gehrig's disease and he became her caregiver
26:22and he said you know was it was time to grow up and he kind of really did and he became this
26:27like super super consistent sober like it was just crazy it was like i suddenly got
26:35the dad that i had no idea was even possibly there for like the last you know 25 years of
26:41his life longer than 25 years 35 years susan is there a parallel there as well with father and son
26:48where a woman comes into the the life the the wife and basically you get your together or that's not
26:56gonna happen yeah talk about how awesome you are and how you changed my life good luck with that one
27:01feinberg by the way how are you all not running out to the bathroom right now i would be losing my
27:08marbles it's a tight movie it's not oh because i'm here you're right you're okay good um who's where
27:14is anybody wearing a diaper it's none of my business because sometimes people do that deflection
27:19like uh insane clown posse concert no okay susan um if anybody has ever dealt with someone with
27:30addiction you know it has nothing to do with someone else they have to be ready and if you can be a small
27:36part of creating an alternative world for them that says hey i'm here if you're clean great but
27:45i there's no credit i will ever take other than basically saying here's what i need to have
27:52happen or more importantly what can't be happening but it's entirely the clearest conversation i've ever
27:58had of my life really yeah it's i mean there's not much to say you know when someone is being so
28:06clear with you on something you go like there is zero wiggle room here right now like not every other
28:12thursday but ultimatums work ultimatums work sometimes you gotta say they only work if the
28:20person's ready you made me ready so there there are um moments of so much vulnerability and and uh in
28:34this film whether it's some of the physical decline that we see of senior or those final moments that got
28:42both of us back there uh and i just wonder is there any part of you who when you're when you're
28:49looking at the you know i guess a rough cut of this and saying is this something i actually want to
28:56share with others or i want to keep this for myself were there those kinds of thoughts
29:02well what did you think sweetheart i mean for me i was like oh that's what happened in that room because
29:08at the time i left and i was like i don't really know what happened there i didn't really he didn't
29:12really answer my question he didn't think he got anything in that room because it was camera set up
29:17there weren't filmmakers in there with him and just left him in there with senior when he came out i think
29:20kevin's the one who asked him like how did it go and he's like yeah we didn't get anything it's like
29:25whoa but that's the crazy thing too and i'm not recommending that everybody record their lives and their
29:32relationships with their significant others or parents or whatever particularly in the in the
29:37we got kind of lucky you know um what we haven't discussed because it hasn't come up is that
29:44um you know there's a million ways to go out that was the last day that i saw uh senior was there and
29:50he passed away in his sleep on july 7th that was about 64 days after that um visit and so even just
30:00that going backwards you're like wow that's a lockout like he wasn't like screaming and being you know
30:08pulled from an ambulance and like his his uh it doesn't always uh go that way and so backwards from
30:16there um i was thinking well this is that's what happened that day and it's really raw and even
30:22standing back there watching it you know 40 minutes ago i was like jesus that's i'm still kind of
30:28processing it but it's it's i it's a luxury to have something that um documented as a touchstone
30:37to keep going back and thinking about it so and even in the moment where he's not entirely lucid and
30:44he says do you know have you met junior or whatever like it's the last question my father ever asked me
30:50have you met yourself i was like that's a fucking good question but i mean it's like even if it wasn't
30:58deliberate it feels like a moment from one of his movies where it's like there is a another meaning to
31:05it that you in the moment gave a great response to but um it is actually again speaking of ascribing
31:13meaning you know you could take a hundred things away from that you know the important message there
31:19and i think chris is i wouldn't say happy that it went this way but it's much more like real life
31:24we don't get the answers we want when we want them this is not this is not a you know disney plus
31:30thing going on here this is a real life like you know things are inconclusive things are unfinished
31:38um there's there's a lot of uncertainty and you have to make peace with that you know susan and
31:45then robert can you tell me is there anything that you learned from the process of making or watching
31:53the film about this man who's been in your life for what is it like 20 years you guys have been together
31:59um and then i'll ask you the same thing robert but just something that truly you didn't like him
32:04him she didn't like him before well i knew too much um you know i uh it was um yeah i mean i got a lot
32:16out of the process for sure i think not only did i get the appreciation of his movies which i'd seen
32:24only a few of them you know when we started um but i think just understanding him as a person more
32:32and you know robert's not wrong at the beginning of our relationship i i was judging him because
32:37i again i know uh things in the past and i'm highly protective and i'm like what's up with this guy
32:43um but he ultimately um honestly he was so good to my father and they got on so well that i'm like oh
32:49well my dad has like he's not gonna be friends with someone who's not a good dude and then when we had
32:54kids things start to thaw and then you're like oh he can be a really good grandfather and you know that
32:59that kind of stuff is i don't think abnormal for for people um you don't want to be on susan
33:04downey's shit list and he got off it just in time right um but i do think the collective kind of
33:13portrait i i i don't know i really felt like there was a ton i learned there's some stuff that isn't
33:18included because um i think the emotional through line that chris found so successful um you know some
33:25just some of the collateral of that is you know damage of that is that there's some things on the
33:31cutting room floor that um taught me more about senior about what his mother was like about what
33:36other movies beyond the few captured here influenced him so as a filmmaker i learned a lot
33:42about him as a human being i continued to find more and more compassion for him and just before you
33:49give your answer robert i just want to mention i had seen one thing where you said you yourself
33:53were sort of struck by the fact that the first time he really had found any encouragement or support
34:00was when he's in the brig in the stockade in the stockade that's yeah yeah yeah i mean he had this
34:07very hold and call field upbringing you know um and obviously completely from a different era but you know
34:16his mom was this very larger than life character she was um she did the cover of vogue when she was
34:24pregnant and i think it's someone that like demi moore matched back in the 90s like they were this very
34:29kind of hip couple and i think he was like yeah not one hug never and i was like oh wow like you know
34:37yeah he was he uh they had interesting relationship thus chafed elbows i think he got
34:43exacted his uh metaphoric revenge there um you know i i think part of what i learned too honestly and
34:52just here and thank you everybody for coming out on a sunday thank you my peers who are here you're all
34:59my peers you know who you are some of you who i've known for a long time and everyone who's coming
35:03out and checking this out it's a you know it's a bit of a um journey but it's also you know everything's
35:10like everything else i think that i'll speak for myself in the royal way i think we're all hungry
35:17for things that feel like they transcend that kind of packaged narrative i think that there's this sweet
35:24spot between something that's natural and and contrived and um and in a way this was just our swing
35:31at doing something that was super personal but also hopefully had a story that had a larger
35:37meaning and there was entertainment and i think i heard you laughing i think some of you you know
35:43felt some emotions and that's why we fucking do this to begin with so and it is interesting i i don't know
35:49if it's there's any rhyme or reason for it but this is coming out in a season in which we also have
35:56the fablemans bardo armageddon time all these people looking back at their own childhoods and
36:02trying to make some sense of it yeah and by the way if you're going to be reflective then also you
36:07have to remember also to be you know entertaining it's such a weird thing but anyway you know how
36:12these things happen there's seasons and times when just like the culture is kind of unconsciously saying
36:17more of this or this is what's on our minds or whatever so anyway last few things i want to ask you
36:24robert you've often talked about growing up and basically having the identity i'm you know oh
36:30that's bob downey's kid what do you think it was like for him growing older being robert downey jr's
36:37father i mean there was a minute there where i was like well see tides have turned have they not
36:44um and yet what's so funny is what am i doing today i'm sitting under a 40-foot screen that is entirely
36:53under his you know it's it's just wild um none of that matters uh it's just i don't know life is
37:05crazy right so we we try to like uh i won't say his name my psychologist says we just we try to make
37:12art of our lives we try to you know express something so i know it's just it's just weird and
37:18they say all art is therapy so honestly i think we and and chris and kevin and and susan and emily
37:26and ryan just want to thank you for joining our uh extended 90 minute art therapy session we'll see
37:32you next thursday it's quite a big ask yes um susan can you tell us a little bit about some of the other
37:40exciting things that are coming up from team downey which i should note became the emmy winning team
37:46downey last night i believe right oh we needed that beginning of the children's uh and uh forget
37:53the full title but with uh well you you take it away yeah no no it's that was cool and then there's
37:59like one tonight we'll see how we do um for like nine or something right which is that's sweet tooth
38:04which is another um thing we're doing with netflix and we had done season one we're in post on season
38:09two we're shooting season three um we have perry mason coming out uh second season as well and that's
38:16coming out um march 6th on hbo and then um we're doing this crazy uh project now um where there's this
38:26odd parallel somebody pointed out to us with senior and all the movies and all that so it's called
38:33the sympathizer it's based on the pulitzer prize winning um novel and director um park chan wook
38:39is doing it with us it's like a limited series um and robert plays five roles i was gonna say this is
38:46like your mom in shaved elbows well in multiple movies in multiple movies but playing a zillion
38:52wait till elsie next season that will be our next documentary i'll get around to myself one day
38:58um yeah that's why i shave my head because i save an hour every morning not having to put on a ball
39:02cap and also you know you like let's telly savallis look so but we're we're i mean that one's really
39:09fun and um that one i know would get seniors approval um and uh and we're excited about that one and then
39:17you know kind of figuring a couple other things we played in the uh podcast i was gonna say did anyone
39:22hear that the sunshine place i finally heard it i'm a producer on it i didn't even fucking
39:27hear it once it was only number one for like how many weeks yeah exactly thanks for catching up um
39:34but you do yourself a disservice you knew more about the subject matter than any of us from the
39:39synonym yeah that was nuts yeah so it's not like you were in the dark it's just you know
39:44and then what is downy dream cars can you remind exactly well i i had a car collection then i said what
39:52are you doing you schmuck with this car what do what do you need what do you try to prove with this and
39:56so i take i'm taking my cars and making them uh eco mods and making these kind of experimental uh
40:03more ecologically sound vehicles and then trying to make that entertaining too and then i'm gonna
40:10sweepstakes them and and uh donate all the proceeds to green tech companies because uh you know this is
40:17my own this is my own little um this is my legacy yep that's great and the final question for both of you
40:25is if we were to have another conversation like this in let's say five years where would you which
40:31please sign me up but uh what what where would you like team downy to be at that point what are there
40:37any benchmarks any things that are on the to-do list that in the next five years are likely to happen
40:43we'll probably scale things up a little bit you know when you're already stressed out the best thing to
40:48do is just take on a bunch more workload particularly when you're lazy and your wife is the one who's
40:53high-functioning can actually make it happen
40:58sounds like a plan
41:02well on that note i want to thank you guys both so much congratulations
41:05i cannot believe you all stuck it out thank you so much thanks a lot
41:08thank you
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