Robert Downey Jr. Snuck A Life-Changing Sandwich Into The First Iron Man
Robert Downey, Jr. has been frank and forthcoming about his prolonged struggles with substance addiction. For many years, the actor abused cocaine and heroin, all while balancing an exciting career as one of his generation's best actors. Downey opened up, as in other places, on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," talking about how the most difficult part of giving up drugs was the resolute decision to do so. Ever since, Downey has remained clean, and, thanks to the 2008 film "Iron Man" become one of the world's wealthiest and most recognizable movie stars. Also in 2008, Downey appeared in the film "Tropic Thunder" as an intensely devoted prima donna actor who surgically changed his race (!) to play a role. He was nominated for an Academy Award.
As many former addicts might tell you, their decision to get clean is often accompanied by a "low point" or a "moment of clarity." Something might happen in their life that illustrates just how badly their addictions have adversely affected them. In 2008, Downey spoke to Empire Magazine (transcribed by the New York Daily News), describing his own personal moment of clarity. As it so happens, there was a night in 2003 when Downey dug through his own trash cans, looking for the cocaine he had potentially hidden there. This was, he felt, as good as things were going to get for him at that moment. He later went out driving and purchased a hamburger from a local Burger King. The burger was so terrible, it kind of changed his life.
That burger was so cathartic to Downey personally, however, that there's a good chance he included it in "Iron Man" as a reference to his real life story. Indeed, the cheeseburger in "Iron Man" served a very similar function to the revelatory sandwich he ate on that fateful night in 2003.
The Iron Man burger
To briefly recap the events of "Iron Man": Tony Stark was a hotshot inventor and millionaire who made his fortune selling high-tech weapons around the world. When presenting a new missile technology in Afghanistan, the cocky industrialist was kidnapped by a local militia and forced to build weapons in a cave. He was held there with another kidnapped scientist named Ho Yinsen (Shaun Toub), and the two quickly became friends. They collaborated — in secret — on a high-tech suit of armor that would allow them to escape. Due to a time crunch, however, Tony was formed to put on the armor and fight his way through an army of attackers. Tony escaped, but Yinsen was killed in the fracas.
Tony returned to America, wounded and traumatized, distraught over the loss of his friend. He also had a revelation; manufacturing weapons was unhealthy for the planet and only encouraged mass murder. His compatriots back at Stark Industries — notably his partner Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges) — expected him to go back to making weapons like before, but Tony had grown a conscience. During one notable scene, Tony crumbled to the floor in a fit of exhaustion and idly shouted out that he wanted a cheeseburger, an American cheeseburger. The sandwich was handed to him, and he took a few bites while Stane lectured him about getting back to the status quo. The scene depicted what was to be Tony's ostensible final moment of crass American consumerism. The burger offered relief, but it was gross, crass, and destructive.
After that scene, Tony announced that Stark Industries would no longer make weapons of mass destruction. He used his inventing acumen to build an indestructible robot suit that would aid him in disposing of all Stark WMDs.
Have It Your Way
Eating that burger was a turning point for Tony Stark.
Downey, meanwhile, experienced a similar "final purge" with that Burger King Burger five years earlier. He recalls driving around Los Angeles with, in his words "tons of f***ing dope." The food he ordered to take the edge off came from a drive-through. The actor said:
"I have to thank Burger King. [...] It was such a disgusting burger I ordered. I had that, and this big soda, and I thought something really bad was going to happen."
Anyone over the age of 20 has likely eaten some particularly vile mainstream fast food and had a similar reaction. Sometimes, it doesn't even taste like food.
After that burger, Downey says that he drove to the beach and threw all his drugs into the ocean. He had decided to be clean once and for all. This came at the end of a cycle of addiction that had been, by Downey's own estimation, beyond his control since the production of "Less Than Zero" in 1987. Downey has been clean for 20 years now, owing his ongoing sobriety to his wife Susan (whom he married in 2005), and a combination of yoga, therapy, meditation, and kung-fu practice.
Since his Burger Moment, Downey has starred in multiple fascinating films, including "A Scanner Darkly," "Fur," "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang," and "Zodiac." He also headlined the ultra-successful "Sherlock Holmes" movies, and, naturally, his many Iron Man pictures. His most recent film was Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheimer," in which he played Lewis Strauss. He never stopped being excellent.