Robert Downey Jr.'s reputation precedes him, apparently.
In a newly released interview with The New York Times—originally recorded In January the day after Oppenheimer received 13 Oscar nominations—famed director Christopher Nolan revealed that he was initially "afraid" to meet the Iron Man actor during casting for Nolan's 2005 film Batman Begins.
"I was also a little afraid of you, you know," Nolan told Downey in the joint interview. "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."
Fifteen years before Downey made his epic Hollywood comeback with Iron Man in 2013, the actor was "sleeping on his assistant's sofa, addicted to heroin, cocaine and alcohol, and with only the first of several prison and rehab spells behind him," The Guardian reported at the time.
He went on to become one of the highest paid and most beloved actors in Hollywood... and armed with more than a few stories to tell.
