Robert Downey Jr. has always credited his wife Susan Levin for helping turn his life around. And although she’d later become the love of his life, it didn’t seem like the pair would become a thing in the beginning. Despite Downey’s advances, Levin had a few reservations about dating the Oscar-winner.
How Robert Downey Jr. won over Susan Levin
Downey was immediately smitten by Levin when they first crossed paths. However, Levin couldn’t have said the same thing about her husband. The pair met on Downey’s 2003 movie Gothika, where Levin worked as a producer. But although Downey quickly fancied her, there were plenty of reasons for Levin to maintain professionalism with the actor. For one, Levin admitted that she considered Downey a bit strange.
“We were up in Montreal prepping for Gothika, and we had lunch with the director and Halle Berry,” Levin once told The Hollywood Reporter. “Everybody else ordered Japanese, but Robert told us how oatmeal was the ‘superfood.’ He brought his own packets of oatmeal to have at lunch. And he had this box of various herbs and stuff. And then he started doing these yoga moves. I mean, he was interesting but weird.”
So although she respected Downey as an actor, that was as far as her admiration towards him went. However, a turning point came when the Iron Man star asked his future wife to grab some lunch with him.
“Four of us would work out together after the shoot, and one day, when we were on the treadmills, Robert goes, ‘Levin, you wanna go to dinner?’ and I said, ‘Eh, I’ll grab something to eat,’ so we agreed to go change and meet in the lobby. And as he walked down the stairs toward me, I remember looking up at him and suddenly thinking, He’s really cute,” she once told Harper’s Bazaar.
Afterwards, it didn’t take long for Downey to fall for Levin’s charms. The two started dating, and Downey was eventually sure enough about Levin to propose to her. However, Levin wasn’t going to marry Downey right out of the gate no matter how charmed she was. Susan required Downey to wait two years before they honored his proposal. Additionally, Downey would’ve had to completely give up his old vices in order to meet Susan down the aisle.
Robert Downey Jr. felt that Susan Levin saved his life with her ultimatum
Downey’s past controversies have been well-documented. The actor’s decades-long battle with drugs and alcohol addiction nearly cost him both his career and his life at one point. But by the time he starred in Gothika, Downey asserted that he was already on his path to recovery.
“The exit strategy [from drug use] was in process,” Downey said.
But it was Levin who might’ve unknowingly helped Downey commit to his sobriety. Although she knew about his past, she had only surface level knowledge of addiction. So when Levin saw flashes of Downey’s addiction, which she and Downey nicknamed Darth Vader, Levin gave him a stern ultimatum.
“I did meet Darth Vader, for like a minute, right after the movie wrapped, and I said immediately, ‘This isn’t gonna work.’ I made it clear that to stay with me, nothing could happen,” she said.
The warning worked, but it seemed Levin might’ve approached the situation differently had she known how serious addiction was back then.
“Addiction was so foreign to me,” she said. “I was incredibly ignorant of the hold it had on people.”
But that was a good thing for Downey, who felt her naivete on the subject allowed him to truly change his ways.
“Thank God for that. If she knew the depths of my depravity, we would not be sitting here,” he quipped.
