Robert Downey Jr. is capping off his banner year with a foray to the stage, making his Broadway debut earlier this month with the new show McNeal.
The show has already attracted considerable buzz, especially thanks to its many celebrity attendees, with opening night alone boasting the likes of Matt Damon, Paul Rudd, Justin Theroux and more.
The actor, 59, and his wife Susan Downey, 50, also act as co-producers on the show, which is produced in part by Team Downey, the entertainment company the couple run together.
They sat down with Vogue to discuss their professional partnership and their misgivings about Artificial Intelligence, which happens to be a key part of the play written by Ayad Akhtar.
"Computers are stupid!" the Oscar-winning actor declared, saying he doesn't believe AI is as much of a threat as people make it out to be. "It still feels like what I thought computers were able to do 20 years ago. It's not that good. If it was very good, then we wouldn't be scared. We would be [expletive] replaced."
Susan explained that she was the one who first got hold of and read the script, convincing her husband to take on the project, in which he plays lead Jacob McNeal. "I was personally drawn in by the character of McNeal and the exploration that he's going on: personal mortality, professional mortality in the same moment."
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However, Susan is also just as skeptical as her husband is about AI, even jokingly referring to their son Exton's capabilities with tech. "I just hope my son learns it first so when I have questions he can show me," she said.
Robert and Susan share the 12-year-old Exton and his younger sister, nine-year-old Avri. The Oppenheimer star is also a dad to 31-year-old Indio Falconer Downey, a musician, with ex Deborah Falconer.
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Susan also explained some of the dynamics of their professional relationship, admitting that many of the projects they sign on to produce (HBO's The Sympathizer, The Orphan, and upcoming remake of Vertigo) is often based on instinct.
"We don't sit back with some formula or master plan," she confessed. "We look for material that feels like we haven't seen it before. You want that element of scariness, that you're in new territory."
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While the couple usually reside in California with their children, they've shifted base to New York for a few months for the run of the show, and Robert gushed about how much he loved returning to the city he was born and worked a considerable amount in.
"It's great to be back. I don’t have to do much of a reckoning with my past in New York or my beginnings in theater or my time on Saturday Night Live before I went careening into the '80s and just was a total mess," he says, referencing his past struggles with addiction. "The fact that I'm here doing this with you and we're able to discuss it in a pretty cogent way today means that the perspective has already been made."