“I’ve had several careers,” Robert Downey Jr. said on an early January afternoon, sitting beside his producing partner and wife, Susan, in a cavernous soundstage on the Universal Studios backlot in Los Angeles. “There was one career where I was happy to be working. Then there was one where I was so happy to be able to be working again. And now there’s one where I’m working — and it’s working.”
Robert and Susan Downey have been together through much of that journey — through rough times, good times and ridiculously amazing times — from the period when Robert was struggling to regain his footing after years of substance abuse and multiple stints in rehab and jail through his stunning comeback as Tony Stark in 2008’s “Iron Man,” the first in what would become a decade-plus string of Marvel superhero blockbusters.
Now, the two, who have been married since 2005 and co-founded the production company Team Downey in 2010, are embarking on a new chapter. Having concluded his run as Iron Man in last summer’s juggernaut “Avengers: Endgame,” Downey, 54, finds himself looking ahead to life after Marvel. But when you’ve already ticked off nearly every box imaginable for a Hollywood actor — promising wunderkind, “Saturday Night Live” cast member, tabloid fodder, industry pariah, two-time Oscar nominee, global superstar — what worlds are left to conquer?
“Robert is in an unusual place where, even though he’s had such a massive career, there’s such a strong association with this particular character of Tony Stark,” said Susan, 46, who first met Robert on the 2003 supernatural horror film “Gothika,” on which she was a producer. “So there’s a lot of scrutiny of: Well, what’s next?”