Hello, Robert. Behaving yourself these days?

Not enough for my taste. But I do like to think of myself as a clean machine. Apart from my teeth. Until I got them cleaned a few days ago, they looked like ciabatta on the bottom rail. That'll be the chain-smoking. But I'm giving up. Next time we speak, expect me to be communicating by screams and the sound of snapping u-joints.

One of the reviews of your new album described you as "Tori Amos with a penis."

That's a great compliment. One of the nicest things that's been said about my album. My guitar player played it for some guys he was playing pool with. Seven of them liked it. But one guy remarked, "This is complete crap." But I like to think of it as a great seduction record. I play it when I'm making love underneath a huge mirror with my girlfriend holding the album sleeve next to me.

You once drove around naked in a Porsche, throwing imaginary rats out of the window. How would you advise our readers to reach such levels of inspiration?

If they want to go down the natural road, I'd strongly recommend 40 weeks of sleep deprivation. What will also help is to have triplets and then send the mother on vacation. Try that.

What do you hate the most?

People who think they have something in common with me simply because they have something in common with me. For instance, the kind of person who will say to me, "You've been to San Diego? Hey, I've been to San Diego, too." So fucking what?

What's up next for you?

I'm thinking of buying a monkey. Then I think, "Why stop at one?" I don't like being limited in that way. Therefore, I'm considering a platoon of monkeys. So that people will look at me and see how mellow and well-adjusted I am compared to these monkeys throwing their faeces around.

Robert Downey Jr's The Futurist is out now on Sony Classical.