Downey debuted at the age of no less than five years, followed by extreme fame during his youth, causing him to go down the rabbit hole of drugs and legal troubles but eventually picking himself up only to end up as one of the world’s highest-paid actors. Surely, actor Robert Downey Jr. has been through it all. Let us take a look at the actor’s net worth and income over the years.
Born in New York to Robert Downey Sr., a filmmaker and actor himself, the actor did not have the best environment growing up. He got to feature in his father’s films in small roles, starting with a movie called Pound. As a young adult, he started acting in poorly written theatre shows, somehow managing to enter the SNL cast.
Characters in movies like Turf Turf and Zero brought him bigger roles in popular movies like Chances Are, Air America, and Soapdish. His leading role as Charlie Chaplin in the 1992 film Chaplin got him unprecedented fame and success, making the actor every producer desired.
From 1996 to the early 2000s, the actor got caught up with drugs, was arrested a lot of times for many different reasons, struggled to stay sober, and was put in rehab, where he finally got better treated. This was a significant slump period of the actor’s life, one that he has been relatively open about, considering all of it was pretty public.
But 2008 was different for Downey as it turned him into Iron Man, the first Marvel film that brought to life the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The actor rode the success of the first film, Iron Man, released in 2008, till his last appearance as the character in the movie Avengers: Endgame. At the same time, another film called Tropic Thunder featuring Downey was also released.
Both the movies were commercially successful and critically loved, indicating that Robert Downey Jr. was back in the game. The fifty-eight-year-old is now loved by fans, young and old, mostly for his role as Charlie Chaplin in the film, Chaplin, and also for playing one of the most loved superheroes of all time, Iron Man, impeccably.
Personal Life & Setbacks
Born in 1965, Downey was the youngest in the family and he is known to have done most of his growing up in the Greenwich Village. After his huge drug scandal that put a stop to his growing career, the actor revealed that he had been exposed to drugs as a child and that his father introduced him to them when he was as young as six years old.
Robert Downey Sr. was a drug addict and he let Downey Jr. use them, especially marijuana, at the age of six years. Though his father regretted these actions later, his son doing drugs together had become a bonding moment where the two could emotionally connect.
Downey said that doing drugs with his father as a child felt like his father was expressing love to him in a twisted kind of way. But obviously, love or not, getting into doing drugs at such a young age had the actor addicted to it, making him desperate in search of the same.
It was very early on in life when his father got him into drugs and films. He was cast for small roles in movies like Pound, released in 1970, where he played a sick puppy, and Greaser’s Palace, both of them made by his father.
As a child, Robert even learnt classical ballet and as a teen went to the Stagedoor Manor Performing Arts Training Centre as well. After the separation of his parents back in 1978, Downey lived with his father in California for a while but eventually moved back to New York to get into acting officially.
His career did not kick off all that easily despite having a father who was also in the industry. Despite that, he managed to pave the way for himself after much struggle all that he built came crumbling down when the actor found himself drowning in consecutive drug scandals from 1996 all the way to 2001.
It started with a bunch of arrests against the actor as he was found possessing drugs like cocaine, marijuana, and heroin. During his trial, he mentioned that he had been exposed to drugs since early childhood and he was thoroughly addicted to them.
He was sent to various drug programs in hopes of getting rehabilitated but it was not all that easy. In the same year, he was arrested once again for possessing cocaine and heroin, and an unloaded gun, a .357 magnum as well. After this arrest, he was found trespassing in one of his neighbor’s homes, and this incident brought more punishment his way.
A three-year probation and mandatory drug testing could also not fix the actor. He ended up in LA county jail for three months in 1997, when he missed one of the compulsory drug testing sessions. This short jail time was also not enough for Robert to get his act together and he ended up in jail, once more in 1999, for missing another drug test.
Getting experienced lawyers, Robert Shapiro and team who defended O.J. Simpson from murder charges, Robert was far from saved and was put at the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison located in California, for a total of three years.
This was also the time when a bunch of Downey’s films were ready for release, though he was negative image in the minds of the fans had the producers feeling unsure about their box-office success. Out of the three years in prison, Downey was allowed to get out after serving only one though he was asked to pay five thousand dollars as bail money.
As fate would have it, Downey was able to get work only a week after his release in 2000. He became a part of the popular series Ally McBeal, and his character was even nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award and it ended up winning a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor.
Though we loved the love interest that he played in the show, turns out that Downey absolutely hated whatever he was doing at the time. He revealed that was his lowest point ever in life because of his addiction.
While it seemed that things were getting better for him as he was signing for more work in the industry including Mel Gibson’s Hamlet, and a total of eight more Ally McBeal episodes, and some other high-budget productions in line waiting for him, Downey once again becomes the headlining news due to his arrest.
It was in Palm Springs, California where Downey got arrested once again. He was under the influence and had cocaine and valium with him. This could have gotten him in jail for more than four years and ruined his career completely considering Downey was a repeat offender and his public image was at the rock bottom.
But he was let out on Parole, though he ended up going back to the police station for roaming the streets barefooted and being drugged again. This visit got him fired from the Hamlet play, Ally McBeal, and a potential casting for the movie, America’s Sweethearts.
In 2001, he was put in a drug rehabilitation center to get over his addiction. There was news of Downey being bipolar that got out after his stepmother did an interview for People magazine. But years later, the actor denied having gotten any such diagnosis, even refuting the actual evidence of him admitting to having bipolar.
Downey revealed that it was his 2001 string of arrests that got him thinking that he did not want this life anymore and that he wanted help. He talked to Oprah Winfrey about his recovery process and said that it was in 2001 that he finally decided to get help and be better.
Downey’s Career and Awards
Born to a father who was involved in filmmaking and directing, Downey was pushed into movies from a young age. Starting with movies like Pound and Greaser’s Palace, Downey pursued theatre and acting, with theatre being the foundation for his career.
Most of his early work from when he was a nobody is actually theatre including a musical titled American Passion which he was a part of in 1983 followed by a 1988 drama called 1969, which he did with Kiefer Sutherland.
Somewhere in 1985, Downey got to appear on Saturday Night Live as a part of this newer, younger cast but the bad reviews and poor ratings had the producers remove the entire rookie cast. Though Rolling Stone called the newbie SNL’s worst decision ever, we thank the heavens that he was dropped from the cast since he ended up getting an actual acting gig that got him his big break.
He played the role of a sidekick and then a bully in Weird Science and eventually his first ever lead role came to him for the film, The Pick-up Artist. With this movie out in 1987, it did not take Downey long to become the national heartthrob with all of the coming-of-age movies wanting to cast him as the lead.
It was in 1987, that Downey found significant critical acclaim for the film, Zero, where he played the role of a rich boy who loses hold of his life as he gets sucked into drugs. For Downey, the role came to him easily since he had encountered drugs before, though this role ended up hinting at his future which was going to hit the actor hard.
With the success of Zero, Downey finally landed a role that required a lot from him. His portrayal of Charlie Chaplin in the film, Chaplin released in 1992, got critical acclaim and had many convinced that he would even win the Best Actor award at the 65th Academy Awards.
He had worked so hard for the role and trained himself to be like Chaplin, but unfortunately, the actor did not get the award, despite the success of the film and the role, losing it to Al Pacino. No matter the loss, the actor was thrown into a whole new level of fame and he ended up being a part of so many projects.
From the years 1993 all the way to 1999, the actor could be spotted in different roles including Heart and Souls, Short Cuts, Only You, Natural Born Killers, Restoration, Richard III, Home for the Holidays, Two Girls and a Guy, U.S. Marshals, and lastly, Black and White.
After 1999, the actor got into tons of trouble and ended up not doing a lot of work and getting fired from many projects. After doing the 2003 film The Singing Detective, Downey was finally able to resurrect his image and get mainstream commercial films, though throughout the 2000s all of such projects had clauses that held him responsible for any addictive behavior the actor would indulge in.
Joel Silver, a friend made with Robert a box office success called, Gothika and he also got the latter another mainstream comedy project called Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. His career finally started taking off once more, when he started receiving more and more films as his credibility increased.
A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, Good Night and Good Luck, A Scanner Darkly, and Steve Shainberg’s biography of Diane Arbus, called Fur, where Downey was cast to play Lisette Model and Marvin Israel. He also experienced a failed music career and book project based on his life which he eventually did not complete.
Though after his rehabilitation and treatment, Downey had been slowly getting film offers and opportunities, the actor was unable to get his hands on a commercial blockbuster that would establish his talent in the industry once and for all. There was still some doubt about his sobriety and he struggled with it.
But things changed completely when in 2008, Downey put out two ridiculously successful films, Iron Man and Trpoical Thunder. Director Jon Favreau showed faith in the actor, and Downey did not disappoint. The movie ended up collecting over five hundred million dollars globally and it was confirmed that Iron Man could not be played by anyone else.
Following the success of the first movie, the film was turned into a franchise of two more Iron Man films, followed by the establishment of The Avengers superhero team, of which Downey was a part. With every movie being released, the grossing amount kept on increasing and so did the budget.
The first Iron Man might as well have been the start of the Marvel Universe making it what it is today. The other movie that was released, Tropic Thunder, also managed to garner $180 million and was number one for a total of three weeks after its release.
His role in Tropic Thunder got him nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Award at the Academy Awards though he did not win this one as well. Another one of his 2008 releases titled The Soloist was much appreciated though it was not as successful.
After Iron Man, Downey’s next big movie came in the form of Sherlock Holmes, where he played the title role. The movie was the highest-grossing film of 2009, the year of its release. For his role in Sherlock, the actor was awarded Best Actor in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy at the Golden Globe Awards.
Iron Man 2 ended up becoming an even bigger success grossing more than six hundred million dollars. In 2010, he released another success called Due Date, a road comedy against Zach Galifianakis. In 2011, Downey was back with Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, the second film of the franchise.
He was spotted in a drama-comedy called The Judge, produced by his own production house called Team Downey followed by more Marvel movies that fans must already be aware of. His relationship with the Marvel universe ended with his final film called, Avengers: Endgame where his character, Tony Stark ended up dying in the end.
Since then, fans have not spotted the actor in a lot of projects though he did Dolittle, which was a flop film and a disappointment for fans and critics. The actor was most recently spotted in another global success called, Oppenheimer, another film which brought the actor much critical acclaim.
In 2008, the actor, Robert Downey Jr. had his name in The 100 Most Influential People in the World list released by Time Magazine. From 2013 to 2015, the actor was the highest-paid actor in the Hollywood industry according to Forbes magazine.
The actor has been nominated twice for different awards at the Academy Awards but has yet to actually win any. Since the release of Oppenheimer, fans have been curious about the actor’s future projects. Thankfully, the actor is involved in a lot of different projects including a television series inspired by a novel called The Sympathizer, written by Viet Thanh Nguyen.
News of him working with the director of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Iron Man 3 was also announced. The two would be working once more for a film called Play Dirty. A third Sherlock Holmes was supposed to be in the making, starring Robert, but the making of the same has been put on hold.
The film was supposed to be out in 2021 but we do not know if it will ever get to see the light of the day. Early this year, it was also revealed that the actor would be a part of the remake of Vertigo, a 1958 psychological thriller made under the direction of Alfred Hitchcock.
It was also announced around the same time, in March 2023, that Robert would be starring in a political comedy alongside actor Robert Pattinson, called Average Height, Average Build by Adam McKay.
Robert Downey Jr. Net Worth
Despite his lows, Downey has managed to rise high as an established actor in the industry. His current estimated net worth stands at a proud $300 million. Such a high net worth has made Downey one of the highest-paid Hollywood actors, and it is all because of his own hard work and resilience.
The character of Tony Stark is used almost interchangeably with Downey’s actual name, which goes on to show just how much of an impact he had on people with his character. His playing the role of Tony Stark in Marvel movies has added a ridiculous amount to his net worth.
While he was paid just $500,000 for the first Iron Man movie, the actor ended up earning $70 million by the third movie and a total of $345.5 million overall while playing the character. Another role that added to Downey’s success was playing Sherlock Holmes in the Sherlock Holmes series, especially Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.
His recent appearance in the film Oppenheimer was also a global success. His main source of income is what he gets paid through the acting roles that he does, but he has also expanded to opening his own production house with his wife, Susan Downey, called Team Downey.
He has produced several pieces, including The Judge, Dolittle, The Age of A.I., Perry Mason, Sweet Tooth, and many others. This also brings him and his wife a bucket load of money, but this is not all. The actor has a great social media presence and is great at grabbing people’s attention.
Apart from his extremely successful movies, critically acclaimed roles in the said movies, and a well-functioning production house that has been around since 2010, the actor has had brand deals with famous brands like Audi, Nissan, OnePlus, HTC, TAG Heuer, and a few more.
Downey is known to own many expensive properties around Los Angeles, Santa Monica, and Malibu. He is known to have a few properties in Venice and California as well, and a beachfront place in Manhatten Beach along with a Windmill home in Hamptons. All of these properties are price high and are assets that increase his worth overall.
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