Actor Robert Downey Jr melted hearts at this year’s Oscars ceremony when he thanked his wife Susan for “loving him back to life.”
Downey Jr was accepting his award for Best Supporting Actor in Oppenheimer when he made the comment as part of an emotion-packed speech referencing his troubled childhood and early adulthood.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: The stars of Oppenheimer: Robert Downey Jr, Matt Damon and Emily Blunt.
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Downey Jr, who once revealed his father gave him marijuana when he was just six years old, was a hugely promising star in the 1980s and 1990s.
But his worsening drug addiction saw his life and career spiral out of control, and unpredictable behaviour on set meant he was getting fewer and fewer roles.
His career resurrection came when, after years in the Hollywood wilderness, he was cast as Tony Stark in the first Iron Man film in 2008.
The Iron Man franchise was immensely successful, and the actor went on to star in other films including The Incredible Hulk, Tropic Thunder, Sherlock Holmes, The Avengers, Spider-Man: Homecoming and Dolittle.
Accepting his award for Oppenheimer at the Oscars, Downey Jr quipped: “I’d like to thank my terrible childhood, and the Academy — in that order.”
He then went on to describe his wife Susan, to whom he has been married for 18 years, as akin to a “veterinarian”.
“She found a snarling rescue pet, and loved me back to life … that’s why I’m here,” he said, to an outbreak of applause.
In the wake of that heartfelt speech, Susan Downey gave an interview with People in which she shared the secret to their happy marriage.
“We do have a two-week rule, which often feels too long, but we don’t go for more than two weeks without seeing each other and the family being together,” she said, referring to their son Exton, 12, and daughter Avri, nine.
“Fortunately, we prefer to be a travelling circus when we can be.”
Downey Jr’s revived acting career takes him to filming locations all around the world, which means there have to be some “basic rules” in place, Susan added.
“You keep the basic rule of two weeks, and then you don’t try and think too far ahead because so much of what we do is oddly unpredictable,” she said.
“Someone might get sick, or there might be a shutdown, or this or that.
“So you just have to have some basic things in place, and then you have to be willing to flow with the rest of it.”
Susan is her husband’s producing partner at their company Team Downey, so they work, live and play together.
The pair first met in 2003, when Susan was producing the film Gothika, which Robert was starring in.
Though she is a busy professional in her own right, she acknowledges that her schedule is a little lighter than that of her in-demand actor husband.
“The good news is I’m not in front of the camera, and so as a producer I end up with a little bit more flexibility in terms of location, of where I would need to be,” she told People.
“I really admire and have a lot of empathy for couples who both have to be in front of the camera because you get stuck, and you have to make those choices (about what projects to take on).”
As for his acting career, Susan is also clearly proud of her husband’s achievements.
“He approaches everything he’s done, every Marvel movie, every other movie, with the same level of commitment and belief that he is an actor and that he’s doing his best to create a role,” she said.
“But sometimes I think it looks so effortless that it’s just like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s just Downey being Downey’, when it’s like, ‘No, there’s a lot of craft and skill that is going into that performance’.”
Downey Jr’s Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Oppenheimer, in which he played Lewis Strauss, marked the first time he had won the famous golden statue.
The same role won him this year’s BAFTA for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, a Critic’s Choice Award for Best Supporting Actor and a Golden Globe in the same category.
Susan Downey has been a producer on films including Gothika, RocknRolla, Sherlock Holmes and Iron Man 2.
