In a new documentary titled “Sr.”, actor Robert Downey Jr. shines a spotlight on his father and the role his father played in his tumultuous upbringing.
Downey Jr.’s father, Robert Downey Sr., was a filmmaker and a drug addict, and he admits in the documentary that he made “a terrible, stupid mistake” by introducing his son to drugs at the age of six.
In a clip from an old interview, thought to have taken place in the 1990s, Downey Sr. says, “A lot of us thought it would be hypocritical to not have our kids participate in marijuana and stuff like that. It was an idiot move on our parts to share that with our children. I’m just happy he’s here.”
When asked if he was ever worried his son, who sat next to him, might not survive, he replies, “Many times.” Downey Jr. remembers “growing up in a family where everyone was doing drugs.”
The actor admitted in a 1988 interview that doing drugs became something he and his dad bonded over. He said at the time, “When my dad and I would do drugs together, it was like him trying to express his love for me in the only way he knew.”
In the new documentary, which he produces with his wife Susan, Downey Jr. compares his addiction to cocaine and heroin to “like [having] a shotgun in my mouth, and I’ve got my finger on the trigger, and I like the taste of the gun metal.”
