Robert Downey Jr. Says Wife Susan Downey “Loved Me Back to Life” in Oscars Acceptance Speech
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After over two decades of being together, Robery Downey Jr. and Susan Downey are more in love than ever.
The couple are a rare testament to long-lasting love in Hollywood, with the two frequently singing each other’s praises to the press and working on a multitude of projects together through their production company, Team Downey.
“There was something magical there, something we couldn’t put our finger on,” Susan said of their relationship in a 2009 interview with Harper's Bazaar. “He always says that we became this third thing when we got together—something that neither of us could have become by ourselves—and I think that’s true.”
Ahead, we break down in reverse chronological order everything to know about their decades-spanning romance, from their quick engagement to their two children.
March 10, 2024: Robert says Susan “loved me back to life” in his first-ever Oscars acceptance speech.
Robert wins his first-ever Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his performance in Oppenheimer, and in his speech, he pays tribute to wife Susan: “I'd like to thank my veterinarian—I mean wife—Susan Downey over there. She found me a snarly rescue pet and she loved me back to life. That’s why I’m here.”
February 24, 2024: Robert expresses his gratitude to Susan in SAG Award acceptance speech.
The actor thanks his wife while accepting the SAG Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture. “For 22 years, she has flawlessly portrayed a sane and rational individual who is happily married to an actor,” he says. He also shouts out their son, adding, “Exton Elias, this one’s for you.”
January—February 2024: Susan supports Robert during the 2024 awards circuit.
As Robert sweeps awards season with his performance as Lewis Strauss in Christopher Nolan’s acclaimed historical drama Oppenheimer, Susan joins her husband for the buzzy red-carpet circuit. The couple are seen at a multitude of starry awards ceremonies, including the BAFTAs, the Critics’ Choice Awards, the Governors Awards, and the Golden Globes.
February 14, 2023: Robert pledges his “undying love” to Susan.
Robert posts a series of sweet photos of himself and Susan for a Valentine’s Day Instagram tribute. In the caption, he writes, “To she who lovingly tolerates my many shenanigans, I pledge my undying love..”
November 6, 2021: Robert shares the sweetest birthday tribute for Susan.
For his wife’s birthday, the actor shares a photo of himself gesturing around the top of Susan’s head on Instagram. He explains in the caption, “Adjusting the halo on my heaven sent partner Mrs D.. you are my everything, and November 6th, Always a day of gratitude, for your blessed birth. P.S. I will never watch ahead on a co-viewed streaming show..That is my eternal vow…”
August 27, 2015: They celebrate 10 years of marriage.
Robert commemorates their 10-year anniversary with a sweet Instagram post, featuring a photo of the couple posing in coordinating outfits on the beach.
“A perfect 10. Happy Anniversary, Mrs. Downey,” he writes in the caption.
November 4, 2014: They welcome their second child.
Susan gives birth to daughter Avri Roel Downey. Robert confirms the happy news in a Facebook post.
“After 9 months of intensive development, Team Downey is pleased to announce our 2014 fall/winter project,” he writes. “Principal photography commenced 11-14 and will continue until she says, ‘Dad! You are embarrassing me...I'm 30, this has gotta stop.’ Yep...Avri Roel Downey joined the party @ 3:22 a.m. on November 4th...she's 7lbs even, spans 20 inches, and is accompanied by a variety of Susan’s traits that have seemingly overwritten my ‘junk DNA.’”
February 7, 2012: They welcome their first child.
Susan gives birth to a baby boy, whom they name Exton Elias Downey.
June 2010: They co-found a production company.
The two launch Team Downey, a production company originally based at Warner Bros.
At the 2020 Fast Company Innovation Festival, Susan describes Team Downey as a “mom-and-pop” organization. “That doesn't mean that the scope of what we do is small,” she says. “It just means the way in which we do it is very hands-on.”
She adds, “You ultimately realize if you’re going to take the time to do something, you have to love it. You have to be willing to know where those hours are going to go, because they’re not going to go to something else.”
January 17, 2010: Robert thanks Susan while accepting a Golden Globe.
Robert wins the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for his performance in Sherlock Holmes, which Susan produced. During his acceptance speech, the actor expresses thanks to his wife’s support.
“First of all, I’d like to thank Susan Downey for telling me that Matt Damon was going to win so don’t bother to prepare a speech,” he jokes. “That was at about 10 a.m.”
He sarcastically adds later in his speech, “I really don’t want to thank my wife because I could be bussing tables at the Daily Grill right now, if not for her. Jesus, what a gig that’d be.”
December 9, 2009: The couple talk about overcoming Robert’s lifelong drug addiction together.
Speaking with Harper's Bazaar, Susan and Robert offer up candid details about their romance.
“I guess the only way to explain it is that I’ve become more like her. I’m still trying to figure out what happened,” says Robert, who has dealt with a lifelong addiction to drugs. “Whatever I was hungry for when I met Susan, I couldn't have known how much more satisfying what I got would be.”
While Susan admits that she found Robert to be “strange” when she first met him—and still thinks he “is very strange”—she also says, “He’s this incredible amalgam of contradictory traits that is never boring. He’s completely eccentric but grounded. He’s someone who has lived so much life yet has almost a Peter Pan kind of never-grow-up quality.”
At the beginning of their relationship, Susan says she had “extreme naivete and ignorance” about what it means to deal with drug addiction. “I don't have a history of making bad choices,” she explains. “And if my parents had any reservations—whether they were scared about [his being] an actor or an addict or that he’d gone to prison or had a kid and an ex-wife, the whole shebang of things I claimed I would never want in a guy, and add some new things to it—they never shared them with me. They saw how happy I was.”
She gave Robert an ultimatum. “I did meet Darth Vader, for like a minute,” she says, referring to the name that Robert uses for his darker habits. “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.”
The actor ultimately threw out his drugs into the ocean and decided to get sober. Reflecting on that pivotal decision, Susan says, “I think he saw what we had. There was something magical there, something we couldn’t put our finger on. He always says that we became this third thing when we got together—something that neither of us could have become by ourselves—and I think that’s true.”
Susan also opens up about her relationship to stepson Indio, whom Robert shares with ex-wife Deborah Falconer.
“With stepkids, it’s hard at first,” she says. “But, like anything, my approach was to just be honest about it and not try and force anything—not act like we were a big family right away. What’s come from that is a really great relationship with Indio, because I didn’t try to make it into something it wasn’t...until one day, it was.”
August 27, 2005: They get married.
Robert and Susan tie the knot in a star-studded wedding ceremony held in the Hamptons, which features performances from Sting and Billy Joel.
November 5, 2003: They get engaged.
The couple announce their engagement just a few months after they first met.
Robert describes his fiancée in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, saying, “I just feel like she’s my best friend and we really get along well. And she also just calls me on everything. And she's multi-tasking squared. She’s doing this and she’s doing that. She’s reading a script. She’s pinning her hair. And it just blows my mind how capable she is in functioning in life. And she has a great sense of humor and she’s a little bit crazy, too, because she’s sitting right here next to me. We’re getting married.”
October 9, 2003: They make their red-carpet debut.
They make their first red carpet appearance at the New York premiere of The Singing Detective, a crime-comedy-musical that starred Robert alongside Katie Holmes, Adrien Brody, and Mel Gibson.
2003: They meet.
Robert and Susan meet on the set of Gothika, the 2003 psychological thriller that Susan produced through Silver Pictures and which starred Robert opposite Halle Berry and Penélope Cruz.
Susan later recalls her first impression of him in a 2009 interview with Harper’s Bazaar,confessing that there were no sparks right off the bat. “I thought he was a brilliant actor, but it didn’t go beyond that. I saw him more like a professor or someone’s older brother,” she says. But, their relationship soon took a romantic turn. “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 adds, “There was something in my gut that knew really quickly. I knew three months in that this was it.”
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