Robert Downey Jr. is reveling in the fact that the Florida Marlins defeated the New York Yankees in the World Series. In fact, he notes that he got in trouble earlier in the day for saying New York should kiss his a**. "I'm glad the Marlins won, so what I want to say is New York is a fine town that can kiss my a**, and I'm glad the Marlins won," he laughs.

Perhaps Downey feels a hint of solidarity with the underdog team. After all, the charismatic actor is a bit of an underdog himself. Despite being one of Hollywood's most talented actors, Downey has struggled to deal with drug problems. Fortunately, today the 38-year-old actor seems to have found a path to sobriety, and he's working on rebuilding his career with two new films currently in the box office: the supernatural thriller Gothika and The Singing Detective, a musical adaptation of the famous novel.

Hally Berry, who costars with Downey in Gothika, actually recommended Downey for the role of Dr. Pete Graham, a coworker who is trying to help Berry's character with her struggles. A big fan of Downey's work, Berry says she thought he was a perfect choice for the role. "I think he is one of this generation's finest actors," says Berry. "He's just one of those people that no matter how many times he screws up, you have an affinity for him because deep down you know he's a good soul that's struggling with a disease that has him in its grasp. I think everybody wants to always try to give him a chance. He's a good guy. He bought a lot of credibility to the film."

In addition, Downey can also be seen in The Singing Detective, portraying an ailing gumshoe who dreams up song and dance numbers from his hospital bed. The film gave Downey the chance to reunite with Air America costar Mel Gibson, who also executive produced the movie. "It was sold out at The Grove last night," Downey states proudly, "which means it made a combined total of $300, which should be just enough to fix the fan belt on one of Mel's farm machines."

Despite his sarcasm, Downey seems genuinely focused on his work and excited to be back in the spotlight. Read on to hear what this talented thespian had to say about making movies, overcoming his demons and what really scares him.

Question: You have your name, Robert, on your Starbucks cup. Do you actually have to give your name when you order?

Answer: Sometimes I'll see some girl who I know watched Weird Science and thinks I'm kind of jerk but that maybe I'm cute, and she'll say, "I'm sorry, what's your name?" and I'll say, "My name is DNJDNJIMMY." So I'll get a cup that says DNJDNJIMMY.

Question: You've got two very different movies in the theater: Gothika and The Singing Detective. Every time we see you on screen, you manage to make things look so effortless. How do you do that?

Answer: Really, I work my a** off. There's always some point where I'm wondering, "Am I ready to start doing this? Do I know what I'm doing yet?" It was explained to me recently that courage isn't doing something that you have anticipation or fear about, rather it's looking back at having taken the action and realizing you made it happen. Sometimes you kind of figure stuff out as you go along. What is it about this that seems to fit with what it is that I've just done? Not that things are ever that sequential or that ordered, but occasionally they are. Having just done The Singing Detective and playing a guy who is really ill and needs a bunch of help from the unorthodox shrink, I thought Gothika would be cool. I'd like to see someone do something that varied in the space of year.

Question: There has been a lot of press recently about how Woody Allen had to drop you from his next project because insurance companies are charging higher rates for you to be on a picture. So Joel Silver (the producer of Gothika) is, in a sense, taking a risk?

Answer: Well, I have a different opinion. If you have someone who is clearly done with a certain behavior, they are a safer bet than someone who is a weekend warrior and who might all of the sudden for the first time having demonstrated nothing but their ability to perform, suddenly take a bunch of - what's the new thing everyone is doing, oxycodon - and get out in their car and take out half the people on the boardwalk. Warner Bros. and Joel Silver were so smart about it. He said, "Yeah, it's a little bit more, but we are going to take some more from you, and then we"ll give some back at the end." It's easy math, really. Believe me, I wish it wasn't happening - or it hadn't happened.

Question: When does all that stop?

Answer: It's kind of stopped already. The fun thing is, information - there is such a long lead time for people to get things. I speak for myself. "Stop doing that. You are really dumb. Where is your moral fortitude?" But it's kind of the one-armed bandit of trying to get someone to get it.

Question: Are you pickier now when you decide what movies you are going to do?

Answer: You know, I've always been picky, and sometimes I've been too picky, because when I see the films that the other fellows have been doing, I go, "Ugh, that was great." Sometimes I think I'm picky to the point where I want to make sure I don't do anything that's going to make a whole bunch of dough, so I can get out of hock.

Question: What do you look for then? Do you look at things differently, given everything that you've been through?

Answer: I don't see how I couldn't. I try to reference just to hear it now. I bet if I ever have a big break in the action, I'll have this super reflective period, and I'll figure it all out. Or, at least I'll tell people I figured it all out, and they'll get a really good laugh.

Question: We've heard that Halle recommended you for this role in Gothika. How did that happen?

Answer: Why she thought I didn't suck? God, I don't know. Lapse in judgment? I heard that today for the first time. Just like Keith Gordon (the director of The Singing Detective) has been hearing for the last couple of weeks that I fired the original director and offered the job to him. Everyone does what they are supposed to do, I guess.

Question: Why do you think people should see Gothika?

Answer: You know, yesterday was so cool. Yesterday was a great day, because The Singing Detective was sold-out, but more importantly, when I was doing television interviews yesterday for Gothika - oh, by the way, I broke the Warner Bros. record for television interviews yesterday... I did 80 - people were coming in and saying, "I didn't sleep so well last night." And I was like, "Yah!" Not that I think sleep deprivation is any reason that you should go spend a bunch of dough to see a movie. But it's affecting people, and it's making them jump out of their seats. It works.

Question: What movie really scared you?

Answer: When I saw The Omen and Damian is in the classroom and he knows everything and he has all that birth knowledge - that freaked me out.

Question: What freaks you out when you watch a scary movie?

Answer: The fact that it could happen - the fact, not the possibility. I've had some weird stuff happen. When I was doing the film Restoration, playing a 17th-century doctor, I was reading all these old texts and dealing with Charles I and the plague, and you're reenacting all these things and I'm wearing all these old costumes. I have a feeling that some ghosts just said, "That just looks like it did when I was there. Let me come back down. That's my kind of party."

A friend of mine had given me a knife, and supposedly a man giving a man a knife is kind of like a right of passage - very warrior-instinct thing to do. So, I was rehearsing some stuff in this little mirror in this English hotel room, and I had the knife in my hand, and it was this weird thing. I felt like the knife in the hand that I could see in the mirror wasn't my hand holding the knife, and I had this really eerie feeling. I had to put it down because there were malevolent energies around.

And then when we were in Wales and I was momentarily sober - I had been for this length of time - and my former wife Deborah and my son Indio were sleeping, for about 20 minutes, I was completely attacked by a ghost with a sense of humor, where the blinds were opening when I would turn around and things like that.

Question: Do you feel like it's okay that there are ghosts and that you accept it, or do you think there has to be a reasonable explanation for things that happen?

Answer: I think it's based on an organic truth, which is that we come here with our baggage and if all this genotherapy and stem-cell theories are true, we come with the baggage of our parents, and there is this long line of issues and unresolved things. I don't necessarily think it jumps from some gal in the middle of the road to some doctor in Connecticut, but I know there are a lot of instances where I've felt driven to resolve something that really had nothing to do with my own existence. Another bad version of that was Heart and Souls. I did this movie that was about five people who died prematurely, and my character goes and resolves some issue in their lives. I think it's really the thing that by helping others achieve their goals, we achieve our own.

Question: We don't really know what your character is up to in Gothika. As an actor, do you feel like your performance can tip the audience one way?

Answer: I can get really bored when I'm working, and I don't mean to. It's not like I don't care. I'm just being honest. But sometimes it's like, "Right now I'm overdoing this scene." So what I start doing is entertaining myself. One of the ways I'll entertain myself is I'll play a completely different possibility in the scene. It usually has nothing to do with anything that would be relevant to the film, but sometimes it works. Like if you run out of ideas and you just go to the grab bag, sometimes some cool stuff comes up. Also, I'm not above mentioning the fact that I often don't know who I am, so sometimes that can inform the performance.

Question: What was it like working with Halle?

Answer: When we were working, you wouldn't have known she wasn't crazy. She was really, really down with her method. You have to admire that. It was almost exhausting watching her gear herself up to do what she had to do, and it's kind of like watching a great athlete train. You say, "I'd really like to hit the tape and win that race but I wouldn't want to have to get myself into that kind of shape over that space of time." I know what that's like to work like that.

She was in so many intense scenes and then I'd come in. I don't really approach work all that seriously right up until the moment that I do it, and even then, I do a couple of takes and they go, "Okay, would you mind coming "back in your body and taking this seriously for a minute?" I'm hoping that occasionally, I offered some relief to her otherwise very strenuous, exhausting and super-intense role.

Question: We couldn't help but hope your character would get together with Halle's.

Answer: Oh, you are so not alone.

Question: What would you have done?

Answer: I would have done my damn best. And, I've got some tricks. She was, at the time, involved and married, and I was, at the time, trying to nail the producer, so we were a little distracted from the possibility of each other.

Question: Nail the producer? What is it you see in Joel Silver?

Answer: He's got more silk than it took to land the troop at Normandy. I love a well-dressed man. (Downey is currently dating the film's other producer Susan Levin.)

Question: But seriously...

Answer: I swear, I'm probably going to grow up any minute now.

Question: What's next for you? Do you have any projects coming up?

Answer: I've got a lot of stuff going on, but I hesitate because I'm just here pushing peanuts for Gothika, and The Singing Detective just opened and I'm really happy about that. I'm like a proud daddy, but both my kids are off to college, and they don't want to talk to me anymore.