I’ve been procrastinating on my Iron Man 3 review for the better part of an entire weekend, but before I get to that, here’s a Robert Downey Jr. story that I just had to share. The running joke around these parts is that Robert Downey Jr. has been staying in character as Tony Stark for the better part of a decade. But it turns out, it goes back even further than that, at least according to writer Dana Reinhardt, who relates the story of attending an ACLU event in the early nineties that was also attended by a pre-Iron Man Robert Downey Jr. (I mean obviously it was pre-Iron Man, unless RDJ has a time machine, which I wouldn’t put past him).

The story is old, but it was brought to my attention today by LettersofNote, and I hadn’t heard it before. Even if I had, it’d still be worth a repost. This excerpt picks up after Reinhardt talks about accompanying her grandmother to the event, and pointing out Robert Downey Jr. to her, about whom she didn’t seem to care.

We made our way to our folding chairs in the garden with our paper plates and cubed cheeses and we watched my stepmother give one of her eloquent speeches and a plea for donations, and there must have been a few other people who spoke but I can’t remember who, and then Ron Kovic [wheelchair-bound Vietnam vet and the subject of Born on the 4th of July] took the podium, and he was mesmerizing, and when it was all over we stood up to leave, and my grandmother tripped.

We’d been sitting in the front row (nepotism has its privileges) and when she tripped she fell smack into the wheelchair ramp that provided Ron Kovic with access to the stage. I didn’t know that wheelchair ramps have sharp edges, but they do, at least this one did, and it sliced her shin right open.

The volume of blood was staggering.

I’d like to be able to tell you that I raced into action; that I quickly took control of the situation, tending to my grandmother and calling for the ambulance that was so obviously needed, but I didn’t. I sat down and put my head between my knees because I thought I was going to faint. Did I mention the blood?

Luckily, somebody did take control of the situation, and that person was Robert Downey Jr.

He ordered someone to call an ambulance. Another to bring a glass of water. Another to fetch a blanket. He took off his gorgeous linen jacket and he rolled up his sleeves and he grabbed hold of my grandmother’s leg, and then he took that jacket that I’d assumed he’d taken off only to it keep out of the way, and he tied it around her wound. I watched the cream colored linen turn scarlet with her blood.

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Other than the revelation that the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are joining Marvel’s The Avengers 2: On The Move, we’ve been a little light in the super awesome comic book movie rumors and news in the past week or so. That’s why it was good that Entertainment Weekly asked the question – is this the end of Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man?

RDJ has completed his contract as the billionaire playboy Tony Stark, and he’s not actually under contract to play Iron Man again in the Avengers sequel. Add to that the fact that Gwyneth Paltrow recently told Kevin McCarthy that she doesn’t believe there will be an Iron Man 4 – “I think we’re done with Iron Man” – and there’s not currently a fourth film on the extensive Marvel docket. So what does that mean for Avengers 2?

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In case you were unaware, Robert Downey Jr. is pretty much the coolest guy on the face of the planet. At some point between Iron Man and now, he apparently just assumed the identity of Tony Stark and ran with it. Or maybe Tony Stark assumed RDJ’s identity. I’m not really sure, to be honest. But the point is that Downey is pretty f*cking cool. So cool, in fact, that when Iron Man 3 was being screened on Monday for teenagers who volunteered for relief in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, he showed up unannounced to watch with them.

Hey, why can’t I stop hugging my monitor?

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Every time I see Robert Downey Jr. in an interview or on an awards show, he seems so confident and so utterly comfortable with himself that he’s like a human cocaine high. In Iron Man, I’m not sure if he’s playing Tony Stark as the smartest, richest, cleverest billionaire in the world or if he’s just playing himself. While he may not have a flying rocket suit or a robot house voiced by Jude Law in real life, one thing he does have is giant shitpiles of f*ck-you money. He reportedly made $50 million on The Avengers alone, a figure that was first reported last year by the Hollywood Reporter, but GQ recently asked Downey directly. Usually when actors are asked about such financial matters, they’re all “Well sort of, but you know I had to pay my agent and my manager and my ex wife and my child support and what with the price of gas these days, ’twas hardly but a pittance.”

Yadda yadda yadda, Robert Downey Jr. isn’t “most actors”:

The Hollywood Reporter recently suggested that the true figure was around $50 million. It’s not the kind of thing most actors are prepared to talk about, but I ask Downey anyway.

“Yeah,” he says, smiling.

Is that number about right?

“Yeah.” A broader smile.

That’s amazing.

“Isn’t that crazy?” he says. “They’re so pissed. I can’t believe it. I’m what’s known as ‘a strategic cost.’ “

Usually we knock people for being arrogant or loving themselves too much, but in Robert Downey’s case, it’s one his best traits. In the right hands, cockyness can seem less a sin than a simple acknowledgement of objective truth, a refreshing renunciation of false modesty. And by “right hands” I mean of course rocket hands.

[full interview at GQ]

(enjoy the video for as long as it lasts, otherwise the full transcript is below)

Jodie Foster received the Cecil B. DeMille Award at last night’s Golden Globes, and maybe it was partly Robert Downey Jr.’s fault for giving her such a nonsensical-to-the-point-of-surreal introduction (he or his writers apparently thought their bizarre non-sequitir about hamsters was so good that it needed Mel Gibson presenting Jodie Foster with a stuffed hamster underneath a cloche – uh… the f*ck?), but either way, the speech Foster gave was a marvel. I’ve never seen an acceptance speech so alternately touching and borderline inscrutable. The big news is, she came out. Sort of. And not in your usual, I’m-finally-saying-this-to-inspire-all-the-youngsters-out-there kind of way, more in a people-I-care-about-already-know-I’m-lesbian-so-why-can’t-you-leave-me-alone-you-goddamned-jackals kind of way.

Here’s the juicy part (full transcript of her acceptance speech after the jump):

“So while I’m here being all confessional, I guess I have a sudden urge to say something that I’ve never really been able to air in public. So, a declaration that I’m a little nervous about but maybe not quite as nervous as my publicist right now, huh Jennifer? But I’m just going to put it out there, right? Loud and proud, right? So I’m going to need your support on this.

“I am single. Yes I am, I am single. No, I’m kidding — but I mean I’m not really kidding, but I’m kind of kidding. I mean, thank you for the enthusiasm. Can I get a wolf whistle or something? [Audio is silent for seven seconds] … be a big coming-out speech tonight because I already did my coming out about a thousand years ago back in the Stone Age, in those very quaint days when a fragile young girl would open up to trusted friends and family and co-workers and then gradually, proudly to everyone who knew her, to everyone she actually met. But now I’m told, apparently that every celebrity is expected to honor the details of their private life with a press conference, a fragrance and a prime-time reality show.

“You know, you guys might be surprised, but I am not Honey Boo Boo Child. No, I’m sorry, that’s just not me. It never was and it never will be. Please don’t cry because my reality show would be so boring. I would have to make out with Marion Cotillard or I’d have to spank Daniel Craig’s bottom just to stay on the air. It’s not bad work if you can get it, though.

“But seriously, if you had been a public figure from the time that you were a toddler, if you’d had to fight for a life that felt real and honest and normal against all odds, then maybe you too might value privacy above all else. Privacy.  Some day, in the future, people will look back and remember how beautiful it once was.

You’re sort of touched by her honesty and understand her annoyance with doing press, but at the same time, you wonder if maybe this speech wasn’t the best time for sarcasm and deflection (and I say this as a person for whom sarcasm and deflection make up roughly 85 percent of my interaction). It’s also a little rambly and discursive, much like her defense of Kristen Stewart a while back. I completely understand not wanting to be forced to tell total strangers intimate details about your life, but I’m not sure answering “yes” to “do you like ladies because it seems like you do” is going to turn you into Honey Boo Boo or Paris Hilton. But it’s her business to decide who she says it to, and I respect that. You don’t hear reporters asking Jonah Hill (Feldstein) or Winona Ryder (Horowitz) or Jon Stewart (Liebowitz) when they’re going to come out as Jews, do you? And that’s about as obvious as Jodie Foster being a lesbian.

Still, with her strange asides and bad jokes and ambiguously-directed tone of condescension, hers probably wasn’t the most eloquent way to express that. Or, as my mom texted me about it, “that was weird and she seems lonely.”

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