From Brat Pack to Iron Men: Robert Downey Jr. Through the Years

At just 20 years old, Downey was cast on Saturday Night Live. Sadly, his days on the show were limited due to poor reviews (he was even ranked as the worst SNL cast member ever by Rolling Stone). He was taken off the show after just 18 episodes.

After meeting on set in 1984, our favorite Sex and the City star, Sarah Jessica Parker, began dating Downey. Their relationship lasted for six years, but Parker eventually broke it off in 1991 as a result of Downey's drug problems.

Proving his acting prowess goes far beyond teen roles, Downey prepared heavily for his role as the title character in the 1992 biopic Chaplin, even learning to play tennis and violin with his left hand — efforts that were rewarded with an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor the following year.

Downey became engaged to actress and singer Deborah Falconer in 1992, with the pair having a son in 1993. However, due to his drug addiction, rehab stints, and arrests, Falconer eventually separated from Downey Jr. in 2001.

The early '00s were none-to-friendly to Downey's style (to be fair, they were terrible to the rest of us, too), with the actor opting for an odd Julius Caesar-like haircut and ombre sunglasses.

In 2003, Downey experienced a career comeback after finally getting sober and appearing alongside Katie Holmes in The Singing Detective. "I just happened to be in a situation the very last time where I said, 'I don't think I can continue doing this'," Downey Jr. told Oprah regarding his arrests and eventual sobriety. "I reached out for help and I ran with it."

Once his health and career were more stable, Downey's love life improved, too. In 2002, Downey met producer Susan Levin on the set of Gothika. The pair became engaged in 2003, got married in 2005, and have lived happily ever after ever since. Their family has grown in the last few years — they welcomed their first son in February 2012 and their daughter in November 2014.

Downey was cast in the 2008 superhero flick Iron Man as Tony Stark, a.k.a. Iron Man. The film was a massive success, relaunching his career and solidifying his spot among Hollywood's elite once more.

It's no secret Downey loved his mother, actress Elsie Ford, very much, but he showed it more publicly than ever after her death in 2011, when he wrote a heartbreaking open letter to her about their relationship.

On top of the wildly popular Iron Man franchise, Downey has starred in two successful Sherlock Holmes films as the title character alongside Jude Law, who portrays Dr. John Watson.

As of 2015, Downey was doing incredible. He rocked the box office for nearly a decade in the Iron Man, Avengers, and Sherlock Holmes franchises, racked up nearly 13 years of sobriety, and grew his family — at 51, his life and career were flourishing.

Downey and his wife are not only spouses, but business partners with their production company Team Downey. It has credits on Downey’s recent acting roles like Dolittle and his 2014 film The Judge, but they also have some interesting projects in development nowadays that Downey isn’t acting in. Team Downey is reportedly attached to remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. They were also part of the Perry Mason remake series for HBO, which starred Matthew Rhys and was canceled after 2 seasons.

Downey worked on one of his most personal projects which came out in 2022, the documentary “Sr.” in which he talked about the life and career of his father Robert Downey Sr., who passed away in 2021. It was directed by Chris Smith, an incredible documentarian who has made films like American Movie and the more recent Fyre documentary for Netflix. He also showed off a new shaved head look, which he really rocks!

Downey’s first role out of the MCU was in 2020’s Dolittle, but he’s had a silver screen break for a few years. He’ll be coming back in a big way at the end of July, when he appears in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. Downey is playing Lewis Strauss, a former chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission who was a key figure in the development of the atomic bomb. He is also signed onto The Sympathizer, a historical Vietnam War comedy-drama thriller developed by Park Chan-Wook for HBO and A24.