This is one of the strangest Vanity Fair covers I remember seeing. You’ve got Robert Downey Jr., arguably the biggest movie star in the world, and you’re going to do this weirdly old-timey cover? Eh. I guess we should be thankful that it’s not another dead celebrity. Anyway, RDJ is promoting The Judge, which got mixed reviews at TIFF last week but which will probably be a decent-sized hit. You can read the full VF excerpt here, and here are some highlights:

His old demons: “For some folks it’s just a function of age. It’s perfectly normal for people to be obsessive about something for a period of time, then leave it alone.”

That time he passed out in a stranger’s bed: “[It was] an uncommon occurrence for me. Happened to be a very public one. I was not a guy who blacked out.”

Time in prison & rehab: “Job one is get out of that cave. A lot of people do get out but don’t change. So the thing is to get out and recognize the significance of that aggressive denial of your fate, come through the crucible forged into a stronger metal. Or whatever. But I don’t even know if that was my experience. It’s funny: five years ago, I would’ve made it sound like I’m conscious of my own participation in seizing the similarities. But so many things have become less certain. I swear to God. I am not my story.”

His son Indio’s drug problems: “He’s his mother’s son and my son, and he’s come up the chasm much quicker than we did. But that’s typical in the Information Age; things get accelerated. You’re confronted with histories and predispositions and influences and feelings and unspoken traumas or needs that weren’t met, and all of a sudden you’re three miles into the woods. Can you help someone get out of those woods? Yes, you can. By not getting lost looking for them. Pick a dysfunction and it’s a family problem.”

Working for Marvel: “I’ve gone from being convinced that I am the sole integer in the approbation of a phenomenon to realizing that I was the lead in the first of a series of movies that created a chain reaction that, if everything didn’t fire the way it was supposed to, there’s no operator, no anything. And you go, O.K., life is doing something here that included me but did not require me. But, yes, that role means a lot. Marvel is kind of like this sacred brotherhood.”

Workouts/diet: “The other funny thing about doing these genre action movies is you don’t want to be the tubby guy,” revealing he does kung fu, strength training, Qigong, and Tracy Anderson. When asked about his food weaknesses, he replies, “Ice Cream. Cheeseburgers. Listen to me. I want a cheeseburger. I want bacon on it. I know I’m not supposed to. I want a lot of cheese. I want Thousand Island. I might even put some Mulberry Street Pizza pizza oil on it. If I could eat whatever I wanted every day, I would have Domino’s pizza with pasta carbonara inside every slice. And at night I would have Neapolitan ice cream until I felt absolutely toxic. And then I would drift off telling myself, ‘It’s going to be O.K. . . . It’s going to be O.K. you’re going to train in the morning.’ ”

[From Vanity Fair]

I love what he says about food!! Women get those questions all the time and I kind of love the journalistic movement to ask male actors those questions about workouts and diets and what they would eat if they didn’t have to be camera-ready. Sounds like RDJ would swim in a vat of pasta, pizza, bacon and ice cream. YES.

RDJ also goes on at length about his cars and he invited the VF interviewer to his Malibu home, which is also home to “two goats and some alpacas (which he doesn’t know why he has).” What about RDJ’s kittens? He had kitties a few years ago that he adored. I want to know about the cats!! As for the cars… it’s insane. He has a Porsche, a Corvette, a “Bentley given to me in lieu of back-end payment for Iron Man 3,” a Volvo, a Mustang, a Mercedes, an Audi, a VQ GTI and he’s about to buy a Hondo Odyssey. Crazy.

RDJ recently told Variety that there are “no plans” to make Iron Man 4. Which I believe. I think if The Judge bombs and RDJ feels like he needs to go back to his franchise, then suddenly Iron Man 4 will be in the works.

Photos courtesy of Vanity Fair.