Jodie Foster opened up to Esquire magazine as part of its Robert Downey Jr. cover story about what it was like directing him in the 1995 Thanksgiving comedy “Home for the Holidays.” The film marked Foster’s second outing as a feature film director after 1991’s “Little Man Tate.” Production kicked off in early 1995, which overlapped with Downey’s addiction struggles. He’d be arrested the following year for possession of heroin, cocaine and an unloaded gun.
At one point during the production of “Home for the Holidays,” Foster “took him aside” and told Downey: “Look, I couldn’t be more grateful for what you’ve given in this film. But I’m scared of what happens to you next. Right now you are incredibly good at balancing on the barstool. But it’s really precarious, and I’m not sure how that’s going to end.”
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“What was so interesting about him then was what a genius he was—there was more creativity in his little finger than I will ever have in my whole life—but he did not have the discipline,” Foster told the publication about directing Downey at that time. “He was so out there that all of that wonderful talent was kind of just, like, flailing his arms in the water and making a big mess. But it was in there somewhere, right? Because now he is somebody who’s become disciplined almost as a way of surviving.”
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Foster added, “I have faith in people’s ability to change if they want it, and he really wanted it.”
“Home for the Holidays” centered on Holly Hunter’s Claudia Larson, a single mother who travels to Chicago to spend Thanksgiving with her dysfunctional family. Downey played Claudia’s younger brother. The cast also included Anne Bancroft, Dylan McDermott, Geraldine Chaplin, Steve Guttenberg, Claire Danes, Cynthia Stevenson and Charles Durning. The movie opened in theaters in November 1995.
A few months later, Downey was given three years of probation because of his 1996 arrest. He was then jailed for nearly four months a year later after skipping a court-ordered drug test. He skipped another test in 1999 and was sentenced to three years in prison. Downey served 15 months, then was arrested again four months after his release for drug possession.
Downey’s legal troubles made him a Hollywood pariah. Even Christopher Nolan recently admitted that he was “a little afraid” to meet Downey when casting “Batman Begins,” telling the actor: “I had heard all kinds of stories about how you were crazy. It was only a few years after the last of those stories that had come out about you.”
Downey’s history with the law also made him a tough sell to Marvel for the career-defining role of Tony Stark. He was former Marvel Studios’ president David Maisel’s top pick, but “my board thought I was crazy to put the future of the company in the hands of an addict.”
“I helped them understand how great he was for the role,” Maisel said in 2022. “We all had confidence that he was clean and would stay clean.”
Head over to Esquire’s website to read Downey’s cover story in its entirety.
