‘Sr.’ Director Chris Smith On The Things Left Unsaid Between Robert Downey Sr. And His Famous Son -Contenders TV: Docs + Unscripted
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If things had gone as originally planned, director Chris Smith’s Netflix documentary Sr. might have been called Jr. instead. He initially thought of doing a film about Iron Man actor Robert Downey Jr., but the star proposed something different.
“We had a meeting at his company and just sort of threw out the idea of doing a documentary on [Robert Downey Jr.],” Smith recalled during an appearance at Deadline’s Contenders Television: Documentary + Unscripted event. “And very quickly the word came back that he was not interested, but he thought somebody should do a documentary on his dad.”
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Smith took him up on the idea. And while the younger Downey plays a big part in the film, the primary focus is on Robert Downey Sr., the underground filmmaker and actor who made satirical and offbeat films like Putney Swope and Chafed Elbows.
“I knew of Robert Downey Sr. but I didn’t really know him or his work that well,” Smith said. “I had seen Putney Swope — which I think a lot of people had — but it wasn’t until Robert [Jr.] sort of pointed us in that direction that I started looking at everything else, and just got a much bigger view of the body of work and the reflection on the person.”
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Sr.’s irrepressible love of moviemaking comes through in the film. At one point during the project, the elder Downey embarked on his own version of the documentary, and Smith weaves that alternate narrative into the final movie.
“It was very refreshing to be with someone that the joy of it all was still so — it was so encouraging to see it,” Smith observed, “like, at his age… there was such a purity in terms of his excitement around anything related to getting a good shot.”
As perhaps is true of most father-son relationships, some sensitive matters between the Downeys appear unresolved. Sr. calls himself an idiot for encouraging his son to try pot when Jr. was just a kid (both men suffered serious drug problems at stages in their lives). Jr. seems poised to explore the subject, but by that point in 2020, Covid impedes father and son from meeting face to face.
“I think Robert wanted to have a dialogue with his dad in person. I think that morphed into these Zoom calls because of the restrictions of Covid. But by the time he actually gets there to have this conversation, it’s almost too late,” Smith said. “In the end scene, he [says to his dad], ‘Is there anything that you would want your kid to know?’ He doesn’t get the answer that I think maybe he was looking for, but at the same time, it feels almost more poetic in a way. … That’s how life is – like, maybe we don’t always get the answers that we’re looking for, but in that is the answer that we’re looking for.”
Check out the panel video above.
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