One Surreal Scene Convinced Robert Downey Jr. He 'Had To Be' In Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang
If you were packaging a film in 2004, you couldn't have rounded up a colder trio of artists than Shane Black, Val Kilmer, and Robert Downey Jr. Black had been struggling to reinvent himself as a writer after gaining notoriety as one of Hollywood's spec script kings; as a result, he hadn't sold a screenplay since 1996's "The Long Kiss Goodnight" (which New Line purchased for a then-record $4 million). Val Kilmer was the whole damn package: a movie star with method acting chops. There was a moment when he was compared to the revered likes of Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift. Then came the flops and tales of rotten on-set behavior. Despite terrific performances in James Cox's "Wonderland" and David Mamet's "Spartan," Kilmer's public wasn't showing up.
And then there was Downey Jr. The son of legendary indie filmmaker Robert Downey Sr. had been on the cusp of stardom throughout much of the late 1980s before finally breaking through in Richard Attenborough's "Chaplin." For his portrayal of the groundbreaking silent film comedian, Downey Jr. received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. This should've been the beginning of a very long prime à la Jack Nicholson, but Downey Jr.'s personal demons had other plans. He'd spend most of the '90s and some of the early '00s battling substance abuse issues. He went to jail. He became uninsurable. It wasn't until Mel Gibson personally footed his insurance bond for Keith Gordon's rendition of "The Singing Detective" that he proved employable again.
While Downey Jr. could work (with certain salary restrictions, given his history of relapses), he wasn't in demand. It wasn't until his girlfriend and soon-to-be-wife Susan Levin, an assistant to producer Joel Silver, giggled at a scene in Black's first completed screenplay in almost ten years that he found his big-screen salvation.
Johnny Knoxville's loss was Robert Downey Jr.'s gain
"Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang" was a rarity in the first half of the 2000s, and not in a good way. It was a banter-heavy pulp yarn about an inept thief who stumbles into a murder investigation after accidentally nailing an audition for a Hollywood movie. Clever as hell, yes, but industry hacks who only knew Elmore Leonard and Donald E. Westlake as writers Quentin Tarantino admired couldn't grasp that Black had delivered a brilliantly preposterous neo-noir riff.
Cut to Susan Levin's giggle. As Downey Jr. related to City Life, when he asked her what was so funny, she said, "Oh, nothing, just this Johnny Knoxville project." Nevertheless, he was intrigued.
"She keeps reading and laughing and she tells me, 'The [hero] just had his severed finger that he had on ice stolen by a dog.' 'What was his finger doing in an ice bowl?' 'His girlfriend cut it off.' 'Why didn't he go to hospital?' 'He did but it got pulled off again by these two bad guys called Mr Frying Pan and Mr Fire.' When I heard that I just had to be in this movie."
The bomb that saved two careers
There is a happy ending to all of this, but it did not come to pass on "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang." Though the movie is now considered a cult classic (and, like so many of Black's work, a Christmas movie mainstay), it bombed at the box office. Hollywood, however, was paying attention. Black had to wait another eight years to get another major studio credit, but he did so as the director and co-writer of "Iron Man 3." Kilmer never benefited in a major way, but he did get to be in "MacGruber," which is its own divine reward. He is currently living with health complications following a battle with throat cancer, and we wish nothing for the best for our beloved huckleberry.
Downey Jr.? For several generations of comic book movie fans, he was and always shall be Iron Man. He's also been clean and sober since he kicked off his comeback with "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang." We are so very fortunate to have him.