ROBERT Downey Jr's come a long way from his bad boy image, but he's full of admiration for those who've broken their boundaries like co-star Gwyneth Paltrow, and friend Mel Gibson
A half-smoked cigar rests in an ashtray alongside a half-empty pitcher of what appears to be a protein shake.
Quite a contrast, but as Hollywood star Robert Downey Jr points out, he's enjoying the cigar far more than the health shake.
‘‘This is s---,'' he says, taking a gulp before breaking into a bright smile and plonking down playfully in an armchair.
He may not embrace health shakes, but the 43-year-old is proof of just how much a person's life can change in 10 years.
With time spent in jail and a history of drug abuse, Downey Jr's life was a mess in the '90s, a far cry from the ‘‘together'' man talking up his latest turn as billionaire industrialist and genius inventor Tony Stark in action thriller Iron Man.
Based on an original Marvel comic, the film revolves around Stark, the CEO of the US Government's top weapons contractor, and how his once-carefree life is stripped away to reveal a
softer side after he's captured while touring Afghanistan.
Asked if he has been misunderstood, Downey shrugs.
‘‘I don't know. I think I have been misunderstood and understood just like anybody,'' he says.
‘‘Pick out a name of anyone you know and there are times when things aren't what they seem and what I have noticed now is that my life is pretty simple and together and I am not in the middle of any desperate struggle. Some of that is just a function of age. Some of this stuff just takes time and you get caught up in something and you have to go through it.''
Though headlines around the world still read ‘‘bad boy Robert Downey Jr'', this former hellraiser scoffs at them and so does his wife, producer Susan Levin.
‘‘If you want to make my wife laugh her ass off you need to just read those types of newspaper headlines,'' he says. ‘‘It's just ridiculous that notion because that's not who I am today. It's something that happened last century.''
Looking over Sydney Harbour, Downey recalls his last trip Down Under with his wife, who produced the doomed Paris Hilton horror vehicle House of Wax on the Gold Coast, almost four years ago.
The star enjoys the laid-back Australian way of life and the filmmaking heavyweights the nation has produced, including his good mate Mel Gibson.
Both known for their controversies, Downey gushes about the man he met 18 years ago while working on action comedy Air America.
Gibson paid the star's insurance bond for 2003's The Singing Detective when studios were nervous about having the once wayward actor working on their films.
Downey, who was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in the title role of 1992 film Chaplin, says he's looking forward to seeing Gibson when he returns to Los Angeles and thought of his friend while flying into Sydney.
‘‘I was just thinking about him this morning and really looking forward to having a coffee with him because it's always fascinating to find out what's going on on planet Gibson,'' he says.
Though 52-year-old Gibson's drunken anti-Semitic rant last year landed him in hot water, Downey says the dual Academy Award winner has lost little support in Hollywood.
‘‘I think anybody would be happy to work with him and I just think that he can pretty much write his own ticket,'' he says.
Downey smiles as he recalls a life lesson he learned through Gibson. After their time on Air America and just before Gibson's next role in Hamlet, executives were telling the Australian he should try his hand at directing, at which the star baulked.
Gibson's creative flair behind the camera has since captivated audiences around the world with films such as Braveheart, Apocalypto and The Passion of the Christ.
‘‘Through him I have just seen the remarkable potential to get yourself out of a way of being perceived. He was like, ‘I don't want to be a director', then he broadened his horizons and has been so much more successful as a director than he has as an actor and whoever would have thought that was possible?'' he says.
Working opposite some of the world's most glamorous women is all in a day's work for Downey, but he admits he had to turn on the charm to lure Gwyneth Paltrow into the role of his sexy personal assistant and love interest, Pepper Potts, in Iron Man.
‘‘I told her she was going to be in a hot dress and that people were going to remember that side of her that she and everyone else had forgotten,'' he says.
‘‘I hate to say it, but she is kind of royalty in a sense because she is one of few actresses who has avoided so many of the pitfalls we struggle with and it's not for no reason. There is something about the essence of who she is.''
