SHERLOCK HOLMES star Robert Downey Jnr has revealed his martial arts expertise helped him play the world’s most famous detective.

The pipe-smoking sleuth is seen stripped to the waist for a big bare-knuckle fight scene at the centre of the new all-action version, directed by Madonna’s ex Guy Ritchie.

And Downey says the spectacular brawling is key to the radical reinvention of the detective more famous for his deer-stalker than his death blows.

The toned actor is a big kung fu fan and not far off being a black belt.

But he insists that the kung fu side to Holmes is straight out of the imagination of the sleuth’s creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

He said: “Doyle called it baritsu in the novels, which is tied to a 19th century hybrid of jujitsu.

“It was so much fun. By the time we were done shooting that scene, I felt like we really had a handle on the movie.

“Not because they finally top lit me and it showed my rippling abs and all that self-important garbage but because this was director Guy Ritchie’s idea – and it was a really bold thing.
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Robert Downey Jr. was at the ABC “Good Morning America’ television studios this morning, December 18, talking up his latest film, Sherlock Holmes.

The movie, set to hit theaters Christmas Day, has garnered both Golden Globe and SAG award nominations. The Arthur Conan Doyle epic has also lit up Robert Downey Jr’s career in a big way.
The ‘Good Morning America’ interview focused on this already acclaimed movie as well as the Sherlock Holmes character himself — that is, until the Hugh Hefner card was put on the table.

“Are you going to be playing Hugh Hefner?” the GMA host asked.

Downey seemed a little bit shocked by the question given he was in Sherlock Holmes mode. So, the accomplished actor replied in a way that really didn’t answer the question at all.

“I love Hugh Hefner. What a great guy.” said Downey. He continued by talking about when he met Hef for the first time and how he got to tour the Playboy mansion and peek into the Playboy achieves.

As for playing the part of Hugh Hefner for an upcoming movie?

‘Who knows what I am going to do,” Robert Downey Jr. finally replied to GMA. It appears the success of his latest film is all this thespian is thinking about at the moment. And who can blame him? Sherlock Holmes just may give Robert Downey Jr. his very first Oscar. Fingers crossed.

Downey’s new film, co-starring Jude Law and directed by Guy Ritchie, opens wide Christmas Day. [Source]

Robert was interviewed at the NY premiere of Sherlock Holmes. I added the video to the video archive.

Laura Davis catches up with the stars of the new Sherlock Holmes film, partially shot at Liverpool’s docks

IN PORTRAYING the world’s greatest consulting detective, Robert Downey Jr will not be cutting a dash in a deerstalker nor exclaiming “Elementary” on even a single occasion.

Instead, he is adding the brawn to Sherlock Holmes’ brains in a film that is set to divide Conan Doyle fans in a way that hasn’t been seen since the famous Baker Street resident was brought back from the grave.

In 1891, readers wore black armbands to mark Holmes’s dramatic demise. Those watching British director Guy Ritchie’s blockbuster version, partially shot in Liverpool, will have to find a more modern way to demonstrate their support.

For, while Downey Jr’s Holmes demonstrates all the mental acuity of earlier film and TV incarnations, he’s also quite the action hero.

“He’s an archetype,” explains the 44-year-old Hollywood actor.

“There’s something so monastic about him – his intentions are so pure and his moral code is strengthened by his resolve and his actions.

“When he feels he’s not inspired or motivated by some creative charge, he’ll fall into a state where he barely speaks a word for three days, and when he’s engaged he has incredible amounts of energy, super-human energy.”

Not all of Holmes’s character traits could be described as monastic, however, but in the movie there is no obvious reference to his greatest foible – his use of cocaine, also known as “7% solution”.

“I love the 7% solution – it was never a high enough percentage for me,” jokes Downey Jr, referring to his former drug addiction that saw him in and out of rehab in the late-90s.

“But if you go back to the source material, Holmes is never described as being some strung-out weirdo.”

Ritchie’s adventure is a brand- new story – with a dastardly original villain, Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong) – but draws heavily on the original four novels and 56 short stories. (more…)

Robert Downey Jr. has an admittedly difficult history with London. “I was here 20 years ago and the food sucked,” he says, though he’s quick to add, “I kind of sucked 20 years ago. Far be it from me to say what was good when and where. I barely remember any of it.” But with his new Sherlock Holmes set for release next week, he’s feeling better about all things British.

In bringing a new version of the famous detective to the screen, Downey was expecting more of the pressure of history. “It’s funny. Sherlock Holmes would be the one you’d think has the most onus on it,” he says of the characters he’s played. But during filming, he insists he got the distinct feeling they were doing everything right. “Sometimes you just feel like you’re in the right groove, and you feel the history and the legacy of something,” he says. “Sometimes you just feel like you’re being silently approved of from some other place and time.”

A key element in rounding out Holmes was finding a Watson he worked well with, and Downey insists he couldn’t have asked for a better co-star than Jude Law. “I’m used to people saying, ‘Well you and so-and-so who’s female have this great chemistry,’” Downey says. “They’re talking about Jude and I like we should be doing romantic comedies together.” (more…)

I have added a few HQ stills of Robert on Good Morning America.

Robert was at the New York premiere of “Sherlock Holmes”. I have added 146 HQ pictures to the gallery.

The actor – who stars in Guy Ritchie’s new movie ‘Sherlock Holmes’ as the famous fictional detective of the film’s name – said: “If it comes to aggressive outbursts regarding creative particulars, I’m a monster! I don’t mean like I act badly or make people feel s***ty or anything, but I get really wedged up.

“It’s all I’ve got in the day, until I get home to my actual life at home. It’s all I’ve got.”

Robert, 44, also revealed his 15-year-old son Indio wrongly thinks his grandfather – the actor’s director father, Robert Downey Sr. – is a hippy.

The ‘Iron Man 2’ star added to Shortlist magazine: “There was this book that came out called ‘The Film Snob’s Guide To Hollywood’ or something, and they call him, ‘hippy film director Robert Downey Sr. Father of,’ and my kid thinks he’s a hippy. I know I wasn’t.

“I had my f***ing hair spiked up, snorting coke and was f***ing driving a Porsche. The last thing I was, was a hippy. But my kid thinks he is.

“He was the original and I would not be doing all this if not for him. He had this time when he innovated and was a real auteur, a maverick guy.” [Source]

More HQ pictures of Robert visiting the Latterman show have been added to the gallery.