Could Brad and Angie stop complaining about how hard it is to be famous? Could we all stop pretending that Benjamin Button deserves all these accolades? (See our review.)
Thankfully we have one Robert Downey Jr. to serve as a refreshing, rehabbed antidote to Brangelina. Downey participated in a Newsweek Oscar roundtable with Brad Pitt, Anne Hathaway, Mickey Rourke, Frank Langella, and Sally Hawkins. Pitt does his usual being-me-is-so-hard-I-have-no-privacy-I-just-get-to-impregnate-Angelina thing, says he's never Googled himself, and says he doesn't even know how to use a computer (who is he, John McCain?).
The others pretty much confer with him, except for Downey who admits to Googling himself and says, "Oh, I love all that s*** personally. Sorry. I just love it. Because it's a hoot. Some people overstate their support, like they know you. Other people are busy doing something else and just want to go on this chat site and say some despicable character assassination, which I honestly think they kind of nailed it. I do have that shortcoming. It's really fun."
Downey's refreshing honesty continues later in the roundtable when he says, "Lately for me, the biggest, most commercial projects that I've done are the most creatively satisfying, the most collaborative and the ones that the audiences respond to."
We love a good indie as much of the next person, but after losing hours of our life to some of this year's dismal wannabe-prestige pics (you know who you are), it's nice to hear that Downey doesn't take it, or himself, as seriously as some of his cohorts. This bodes well for Iron Man 2.