Jake Gyllenhaal Recalls the Challenges Robert Downey Jr. Faced Filming Zodiac

Summary

• Jake Gyllenhaal recalls Robert Downey Jr.’s struggles to return to acting post-drug abuse in
  Zodiac
  .
• Working with Downey, Gyllenhaal was amazed at his talent and quick memorization skills.
• Downey’s comeback story includes difficulty hiring due to high insurance costs, later leading to MCU success.

Jake Gyllenhaal has recalled his time working with Robert Downey Jr. on David Fincher’s Zodiac, and how the actor didn’t have the easiest of times getting back into acting following his years of drug and alcohol abuse. Robert Downey Jr. has come a long way since being known as the “comeback kid,” and with a recent Oscar win for his role in Oppenheimer, it caps off a truly remarkable story of turning things around. That being said, once the actor got clean and wanted to get back into the acting game, it was hard to hire him on projects due to his huge insurance premium, something his former Zodiac co-star Jake Gyllenhaal got to see personally when they worked together.

Zodiac

Release Date March 2, 2007

Runtime 157

Tagline There’s more than one way to lose your life to a killer

During an appearance on The Howard Stern Show on Sirius XM, Gyllenhaal expressed his love for his former costar, and mentioned seeing first hand what he had to do to be in the movie. Gyllenhaal said, “I was with him when he was driving himself to work when he had to insure himself.” The actor then went on to discuss what he learned the most from working with him.

“He is an extraordinary actor … When you talk about somebody when you watch them work where you’re just in awe – he’s one of those. He memorized things in a way where you memorize them so fast you don’t think about them … your conscious brain is not connected to the words you’re saying … then you slow it down. That’s his magic. His mind works so quickly. I always said working with Robert was like working in 10-D … It’s extraordinary.”

Robert Downey Jr. is a True Comeback Story

Before Downey Jr. got his life together, the actor was in and out of jail between 1996 and 2001. Following his last stint, the actor began taking the steps to get clean, and he has maintained his sobriety since 2003. Despite getting clean, getting acting jobs proved to be hard because he was deemed unhirable due to what it would cost to insure the actor to work on a project. He was able to return to the big screen with the help of Mel Gibson, who paid the actor’s insurance bond for the 2003 film The Singing Detective. Similar moves were made when he co-starred in 2003’s Gothika after producer Joel Silver withheld 40 percent of his salary until after production wrapped as his own insurance policy.

Related Robert Downey Jr. Says Christopher Nolan Helped Resurrect His ‘Dwindling Credibility’ After MCU Role During his BAFTA award speech for Best Supporting Actor, Robert Downy Jr. thanked Oppenheimer director, “that dude” Christopher Nolan.

In Zodiac, Downey Jr. played Paul Avery, a journalist who worked for the San Francisco Chronicle during the infamous Zodiac case. This was a year before his huge blockbuster break with Iron Man and, at least according to Gyllenhaal, the actor was still having to insure himself in order to appear in projects at that point. However, what a difference a year makes, because even though some were unsure of his casting as Tony Stark/Iron Man, it paid off. Reports suggest that by the end of his MCU run with Avengers: Endgame in 2019, the actor made an estimated $435 million.

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