Robert Downey Jr. dishes on getting fired from shoe store job
Robert Downey Jr. received the Santa Barbara Film Festival's Maltin Modern Master award
Robert Downey Jr. dished details on why he got fired from his job at a shore, years before becoming the actor.
The Oppenheimer alum, who received the Santa Barbara Film Festival's Maltin Modern Master Award on Friday spoke about his Hollywood success, also reflected on his previous jobs.
While conversating with the film critic Leonard Maltin at the event, Downey revealed if he tried to make a career in another fields other than acting.
"Well, I worked at a sandwich shop. I worked at a shoe store, but I had sticky fingers and I got fired after two weeks," he said.
He explained, "This is before those closed-circuit cameras where they monitor who might be sitting. … I was not very good at it."
"And I worked in clubs and I worked at Thrifty's in Santa Monica," he added. "I made it to busboy, but I didn't really have the panache to be a waiter, I was told, so I had to resort to theater."
Meanwhile, Maltin during their conversation revealed that the Iron Man actor made his first on screen debut at the age of 5, in his late father Robert Downey Sr.'s directorial Pound.
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To which Downey responded saying, "Yeah, I think this is what I was supposed to do."
About Maltin Modern Master Award:
According to the film festival, the accolade received by Downey was first created in 1995 after Maltin's name, “to honor an individual who has enriched our culture through accomplishments in the motion picture industry."
Maltin and Downey also talked about the Zodiac actor's latest role as Lewis Strauss in Oppenheimer, which also garnered him the Oscar nomination of best supporting actor.
During their conversation, Robert Downey Jr. praised his Oppenheimer co-actor Cillian Murphy, who was also present at the Santa Barbra Festival.
"Cillian is straight man to no one. He is just, I think, beginning to understand by the reaction he gets when he comes to places that he's a f---ing force of nature," he said of working with Murphy on Christopher Nolan's 2023's hit.
