Robert Downey Jr. :: stressed out and on the road in 'Due Date'

Robert Downey Jr. has never had to be a nice guy. From bullies in '80s comedies and out of control drug addicts (fictional) to sleazy tabloid reporters, troubled silent film legends and a hospitalized hallucinating writer, Downey has traded on complicated characters in all genres. Even Iron Man and Sherlock Holmes are button pushers and social rogues.�

So the road trip comedy Due Date did not require Downey to play a Hollywood Mr. Nice Guy. Peter Highman is an argumentative, often hostile guy. He's stressed because Ethan Tremblay (Zach Galifianakis) got him kicked off a plane and onto a No Fly List. Having left his wallet and id in his carry-on that's on the plane, he is unable to rent a car to drive from Atlanta to Los Angeles to attend the impending birth of his first child with wife Michelle Monaghan. As it turns out the only person who can help him get to LA in time is Tremblay, an aspiring actor enroute to Hollywood (as he puts it) for an interview with an agent. In these frustrating circumstances, Downey found the comedy.�

"I don't know why but it was an invitation to me to get in to touch with everything that annoys me about everyone and all the fear that I have about everything that everyone can relate to," Downey said. "So in a way I felt like I was a conduit to this. It wasn't very pleasant. I'm sorry by the way. I don't know why, I'm not a method guy. I can't be bothered to have a method. I just want to be a part of a good movie and I can't stand to be surrounded by morons, but we had such a great group of people in the whole thing. It's funny, yeah, because you could say this is a two dimensional commercial comedy. I feel that this is the second greatest story ever told."�

Inside Downey’s process

A bold claim, but not uncharacteristic of Downey's attitude. A scene of Peter spitting on Ethan's dog made it into the trailer, and another scene has him sock a child in the stomach. Director Todd Phillips, who previously directed the megahit The Hangover, suggested both actions.�

"I love that we've actually gotten more push-back from spitting in a dog's face than punching a human child in the stomach. Those are the two things, Todd told me to do both of them. On one of them, on the day he said, 'You should spit in that dog's face.' I was like, 'Yeah, yeah. Anyway...' He goes, 'I want you to spit in the dog's face.' I said, 'That's so definitive,' and he goes, 'I know but I think that people like you enough. I don't know if they will. Just spit in its face.' He loves dogs and I actually don't like dogs. So I felt kind of horrible and splendorous doing it."�

If you want to get a little bit inside Downey's process, it turns out he takes more than just suggestions from his directors. "I think that every time I feel that I really hit critical mass and I'm in the right place is when I feel like the director and I become a third thing and that's the character. Even though the central subject of the movie is Ethan, the person who you're kind of seeing it through is Peter. Particularly when he said, 'There's just a lot of hostility and there's a lot of fear and his kind of attitude and his anger is covering that fear and stuff,' and we like to commiserate. We're genuinely pretty happy guys but we love just getting crabby together. He is kind of like a hostage child that we've taken who's watching mom and dad or dad and dad just hash it out. I always feel like I'm playing an aspect of the director, particularly when he's an auteur. To me it's a way of almost making him a proud parent. I'm a bit of an appendage of some aspect of the director."�

Sequel in the works?

Technically, Downey's job would be to be the straight man to Galifianakis. It doesn't quite work out that way, because both have their moments. "Let me put it this way, I'm eighty five times more professional than Zach but I was hoping that we'd have some good gag reels so maybe I'd chuckle a little bit more. He might not actually know how funny he is sometimes, too. He has a ghastly tic. It's my favorite thing about him, to tell you the truth, particularly when we're doing press and it takes him forty five years to answer one question. He's trying to think about what the answer is and then he stutters and then he judges himself."�

One scene in particular cracked Downey up. Galifianakis' line is just to tell his dog to stop. Downey recalled his impression of the multiple takes. "'Sonny stop it, we're going to be late...[clearing his throat], Stop it, Sonny, we're going to be late [clears his throat]...' I'm sorry, 'Sonny, late we're going be... Sonny, stop it. Stop it, Sonny. Stop it, Sonny, we're going to be late. Stop it, Sonny, we're going to be late.' I'm just there, like, 'This is an anthropological study. Now what are we supposed to do? When will you be done? That will be my cue.'"�

Ethan Tremblay is an aspiring actor, so when Peter really wants to dig at him, he insults his craft. Peter does seem to know a bit about technique though, so perhaps a bit of the real Downey bled through.�

"I think that Todd and I said his neighbor was a casting director. So it's like I tell you that the Guggenheim opened in '59. You tell me about what's going on, casting a show and everyone wants to be an actor, but everyone knows that everybody thinks that they want to be an actor and has no chops. I think I'm worried for him and so my fear that this moron that I'm stuck with, I'm actually trying to give him some insight. I'm just mad at him when I give it. But also I mean, and this is a disgusting thing to say, and it speaks to my - it's not as bad now - but my hugely inflated ego at the time, I felt that it was my duty to teach this guy to fucking act. But he already knew how." �

The Hangover, the film that turned Galifianakis into a star, is already getting a sequel, so there may be room for Downey and Galifianakis to reunite for another road trip if Due Date doe well.�

"Yeah, that's what I need is three franchises so that I can utterly have a personality meltdown and no real life, but I would do it with these guys. I have to say, too, that there was something so cathartic, and as we all know from the writers and Michelle peripherally and our involvement in it, but I think it was just the most healing project that I've ever worked on. I've never come up against anyone who is so confident and so thoughtful and so spontaneous that it's not even daunting. He's just in a class by himself and I think Todd is the best director that I've ever worked with, bar none."�

With Downey's other franchises, Disney recently announced that they would release Iron Man 3 now that they own Marvel. "You know what, I really loved our relationship with Paramount but to me, the main thing, I don't care about any of that. They're going to make those all those movies. I just want to make a great movie and thanks to my tutelage under two guys who know how to play with power - Zach and Todd - I know exactly what to do with Iron Man 3." �

Currently Downey's hair is long again for Sherlock Holmes 2. He was reluctant to talk about other projects though. He preferred to share an idea that never made it into the Due Date marketing campaign.�

"We had decided together we were going to do some viral videos to promote the movie and then we could barely hit our ass with both hands just to even show up and do the regular press but the idea was that we were going to have this double inner monologue going. We were going to walk down Venice Beach out to the sand and shake hands and then walk away from each other. That would only take an hour shoot and then we were going to lay the most awesome double internal voice-over over it and it would've been - we'll never get to it - the greatest viral video of all time. So just imagine that we had the time to do that and we're happy to comment on that because we'd like to know what it would've been."�

Due Date opens Friday.