Robert Downey Jr. Reflects on His Hollywood Journey After Oscar Win: 'There Are Ways to Heal' (Exclusive)

After winning an Oscar for ‘Oppenheimer’, the star opened up to PEOPLE about his rollercoaster career

Robert Downey Jr. opens with the story of his roller-coaster Hollywood career shortly after winning his first Oscar.

Accepting the award for Best Supporting Actor, Downey peppered his eulogy with emotional moments, talking about the years he spent in the grip of drug addiction in the late ’90s and early 2000s. He thanked his wife for “bringing me back to life,” along with his longtime attorney, joking that the attorney spent half of their 40 years together “trying to secure me and save me.”

Soon after that, Oppenheimer star, who next tackles four roles in the HBO spy drama Sympathizer (out April 14) reflected on his journey from uninsurable actor to Oscar winner in a chat with PEOPLE.

“I think if you develop a moral psychology, things are a lot easier,” Downey, 58, tells PEOPLE in this week’s cover story. “And I think it’s hard to explain certain behaviors when there are ways to cure them. So I both have a lot of empathy for anyone who doesn’t rely on what they can do to improve the state of their compass. That’s all.”

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Robert Downey Jr.

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Standing next to him, Downey’s wife Susan adds, “I feel like anyone’s journey, however fraught or positive, whatever it is, it’s your journey. There’s nothing we would do differently.”

Away from the spotlight, those close to Downey say he has quietly focused on helping others.

“His manner is touching,” says a colleague the Avengers star Jeremy Renner, who was in intensive care last January after a horrific snow plow accident.

He notes that Downey kept checking on him. “We ended up having really great conversations on FaceTime, like we were on a date or something,” Renner recalls.

Most Iron man it is silent about the good deeds of the star. “He really believes in giving back,” Susan tells PEOPLE. “And he does it through his actions.”

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“If he sees a performance he likes, he’ll go out of his way to get his hands on that person, especially anyone young and up-and-coming,” she says. “If he knows someone is struggling, he will extend his hand, so much so that people know to send people towards him, because he will endure it. It’s just gratitude for everything he went through, for all the people who were there and stayed in some of their difficult periods.”

The couple, who have been married for 18 years and work together in their production company Team Downey, have built a strong foundation at home. As a rule, not even two weeks pass without seeing each other, and family dinners are cheerful and punctual. “We all love his playfulness,” says Susan, sharing that Downey often leads puns or improvisations with her children at the dinner table.

“Here’s the interesting thing,” she says. “I came from an incredibly stable household, and Robert’s was, shall we say, less than that. And yet, he’s the one who brings the right kind of domesticity to that household, and I just make sure that everything works and works well.”

Robert Downey Jr. and Susan Downey.

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From stocking the house with pancake art supplies to singing loudly at jam sessions with kids Exton, 12, Avri, 9, and Indio, 30, Downey relies. “He really cared about everything they cared about,” says Susan. “I think he craves and therefore wants to provide stability that he probably hasn’t necessarily had.”

Downey tells PEOPLE that family life gives him focus. “Honestly, it just gives me something to relate my neurosis to, which is positive,” he says. “And I love when I can ask [Susan] if she thinks we should paint the kitchen a different color or if maybe a new carpet in her office, whatever. I’m not saying that I’m like a newly minted interior designer. But there are two kinds of people, and I’m one of those people who care about curtains.”

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The Oscars presented another full circle for Downey when he Oppenheimer swept Best Picture – with a famous face at the microphone.

“It’s crazy that Al Pacino, one of my favorite human beings in the world, presented Best Picture,” Downey told PEOPLE. “And it’s also crazy that I think he deservedly won the first time I was nominated [in 1993 for Chaplin]for The smell of a woman,” he says.

The Oscars moment on March 10 also evoked memories of his late father, a famously provocative indie filmmaker who died in 2021. (Downey has since released a Netflix documentary, Sr., in his honor.)

“The elder went to the grave going, ‘[You] robbed because of Chaplin.’ He wouldn’t say that he really thinks any of my other films are very good or even that he does Chaplin was fine, but he knew I was robbed,” Downey said.

But after Downey’s Oscar win, “I think he would feel that justice has been served and he can rest. But the problem is, he never cared about this s. . . anyway.”

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Source: HIS Education