A lot of people did really well in the 1990s, but Robert Downey Jr. wasn't one of them. The decade stared off brightly enough, with an Oscar nomination for his turn in the title role of 1992's Chaplin, but within a couple of years Downey was living the Hollywood cliché. The bad one, that is. For him, it was largely a decade spent in and out of jail and rehab, all of it well documented in the tabloids and all contributing to the impression that Downey, once such a prominent rising star, was a lost cause.

It's easy to image what might have become of Downey had he not cleaned up his act and, with the help of some Hollywood friends who staked their names on his rebound, begun his acting career anew. In fact, it seems almost miraculous the extent to which his career has now recovered from its Clinton-era lows. Certainly, part of it has to do with the fact that Robert Downey Jr. is as talented an actor now as he's ever been (granted, he's settled nicely into playing the somewhat familiar brilliant and eccentric A-hole) but becoming one of the most bankable leading men in Hollywood is no small feat. How'd he do it? Downey himself isn't sure, but he doesn't have much time to think about it either. He's too busy working.

What was the biggest challenge making Iron Man 2?

I think the trickiest part was living up to the ambition. How do we make sure that all these insanely gifted people who are used to being number one on their own call sheet, how do we give them a real beginning, middle and end? How do we make them pertinent to a story that actually could have easily been told just continuing along the same lines we were, bringing in a non-descript bad guy and kicking ass? From the start, Jon Favreau and I told Mickey Rourke that he wouldn't just be playing a two-dimensional nemesis. We were thrilled to get Scarlett Johansson and we said, "You're not just going to be some kind of B Marvel spin-off story thing cause we want a hot chick kicking ass in this movie." And I think we managed that.

What is going to be different this time around? How has the arc changed?

Last time we see Tony Stark as this hapless charming prick that has his ass handed to him. He turns it around and then is almost snuffed by the very person he thought he could trust above everyone else. But just because someone has a life-changing experience doesn't really mean they change. It's one thing to say you are Iron Man and it's another thing to actually be a righteous person.

Can we expect a love triangle between Tony, Pepper and Black Widow?

I think we essentially started off saying love triangle. Then we realized that love triangle is done in these superhero movies all the time. What we wanted to do was something just a little bit freakier than that, and I believe we have succeeded.

How surpised are you that Iron Man has changed people's perceptions of you as an actor? You're in a different place now than you were, say, three years ago.

Yeah. It's pretty miraculous, but in the realms of miracles, I think it's probably a two or three, I guess. It's a movie industry thing. Nonetheless, it's mind-blowing to me. I had always felt like I wanted and could do something like this.

Has the prospect of starring in the Avengers set in for you yet?

Not entirely. I'm not as savy about that stuff. I just know that right now we've got a really good thing going on and it's most important not to sully that. I'll listen to the professionals and just keep selling soap until otherwise notified.

You had a great year with Iron Man and Tropic Thunder and now Sherlock Holmes and another Iron Man. Is the Robert Downey Jr. renaissance in full swing?

The best thing I can do, and I think this is the thing that has been my saving grace, is that I consider myself a worker amongst workers. When I deviate from that, things don't turn out so sweet for me.

Do you feel like you're a guy who's in your second act, that the public has given you one?

For me, I do see this as act two, but I see it as an act two that was really hard won. There was so much ignorance and so much ego and so much kind of disdain for living a principled life. Now I realize that there is so much power in those principles about just being humble, just being honest, just having real faith, whatever that means to the individual.

What spirituality has been involved in your transformation?

Well, one isn't enough. I'll just answer this briefly. I was already a very spiritually motivated kid in my mid-teens. I was always reading these books that I don't even understand now, and more recently, in the last five years or so I've gotten involved in Shaolin Kung Fu. I thought that it was like a sport and I thought that it was self-defence, but it's an absolute head game. It's a religion of sorts, because it reconnects you with getting out of the way so that you can really fight, so you can really interact, so you can really listen - all of that stuff. It sounds really dumb, like Neo from The Matrix and all that stuff.

How do you feel about working hard these days?

Well, look. I would tell anyone, if you want to avoid hard work, get into narcotics for about 10 years because that's not a lot of work. I've always worked my ass off and tried to be as professional as I could. Actions that I took, decisions that I made, I obviously tied my shoelaces together and I didn't pull it off, but the funny thing is that I've never been more trusted or accountably or busy than I am now.

Do you have a better appreciation for your career now?

I think it's just like Joel Silver says, "It isn't show pleasure, it's show business." It never occurred to me, particularly after I did Chaplin, that there was this 18-month window where I wasn't supposed to smoke bowls and watch the History Channel; I was suppose to plan the next big thing. It is disheartening because you try to act detached but essentially your life is your work and friends and your family and your relationships. They say good work and good friends is what sustains you. I guess it was that thing, too, of the narcissism of wanting to act like it wasn't that important to me and I didn't care, and also having the tendency to check out and anesthetize myself. Between the two of those, it's like you are not firing on all cylinders, and it's not that kind of party.

You mentioned producer Joel Silver. He features regularly in your career.

Well, like so many of the great things in my life lately, they've come directly out of having done Weird Science with Joel. We did Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and before that Gothika happened, and Susan, and that was just better than anything.

Susan is your wife?

You bet. I remember Susan coming home at the time and she's reading something and she's laughing out loud and I thought that's weird for a Silver picture. "Was it like a really cool special effect of something like that, that was ironic?" She said, "No, I can't even explain it." It was Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

So what is it that you're looking to get from a director when you go into a project?

It's always the same thing. I want to find a man or a woman where we become a third thing together and the third thing is the character. If there is a director that's popular enough with themselves to realize that's the alchemy that can happen then it's a fucking love affair.

What are you doing next?

I'm going back to LA and I'm opening this movie and then I'm going to get a minivan. I'll probably just drive my kid and his buddies arond, drive him to school.

Just be a dad?

Just be whatever. Anything but someone who's talking about themselves in glowing terms all day long.

Does your son have have any interest in acting?

Not too much. He's done a little bit. I have encouraged him, he's a natural, but you know, looking at the examples of what he's seen, that you have to be the centre of attention, or you have to go make a bunch of money, or you have to have successes or failures, or some big arc that combines both so that maybe people will perceive your happiness. He said: "Why don't you just cut all the garbage and figure out how to get happy?"

Are you proud of your son?

Yeah, he's turned out to be an amazing kid. Let me put it this way. It's not a stretch. I think most fathers when you ask if they mean it or not, they will say they are proud of their kid. It's not cool to say you aren't. "Are you proud of your kid?" "No." "What's wrong with you?" That means you're an idiot and you're not a man at all.

What about taking on the director role?

Yeah, right now I have this whole Marvel Universe, which I'm so blessed and excited to be part of, then the possibility of another franchise with Sherlock Holmes so I don't want to be that person... the person who has a double franchise, and directing, and writing... but yes, I do. Sure I do. You can only be the guy in front of the camera who is viable, as a leading man, in his 40s or early 50s for so long. I'm not saying that I don't want to go see a Rolling Stones show, but I'm saying I've got to get out of the game and switch my shit up before people are going "Wow, he's like the guy not leaving the party."

Can you enjoy the moment of this time, or like a lot of actors do you think it's downhill from here?

I think you can either have a good day or a bad day regardless of what's happening. I think there's more pressure to have a good day when things are good because you're supposed to feel a certain way, and if you don't feel that way does that mean that there's something wrong with you? No. It means that you have the whole thing wrong. On a good day or a bad day, the way that you feel is the way that you feel, and it usually doesn't match up.