Robert and Artist Tobias Keene Talk About 20-Year-Long Friendship

On a recent afternoon in Los Angeles, Robert Downey Jr. swings by Tobias Keene’s downtown art studio to catch up with his best friend of almost two decades.

Over plates of arugula salad with grilled chicken and wheat-free cupcakes—the actor doesn’t eat gluten—the two men, who haven’t seen each other in a few months, joke and chide like teenage boys. Both have a lot to laugh about these days, given their humbling, not-so-glamorous pasts.

Keene, 48, who moved here from England in 1988, has come a long way from sweeping floors at a Beverly Hills hair salon. Today, he is a figurative painter whose work evokes a wide range of styles from Thomas Gainsborough to Francis Bacon. This spring, he’ll have a solo show at LeBasse Projects in Los Angeles.

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At 46, Downey, who has publicly suffered his share of low moments, seems to have hit his creative stride. He just wrapped two films, reprising his role as Sherlock Holmes, out this December, and as Iron Man for “The Avengers,” in theaters in May.

Downey and his wife, Susan, have also established Team Downey, a production company that is developing various projects for the big screen as well as television. They’re expecting their first child early next year. (Downey also has a son, Indio, 18. Keene and his wife, screenwriter Robbi Chong, are Indio’s godparents.)

Together, Downey and Keene have managed to maintain a friendship that’s inspired each other’s work and personal growth. “Any relationship takes effort, and the effort isn’t worth it if there isn’t some sort of exchange,” says the actor.

As the two men revisit tales of hotel room antics, their family histories and the addictively appealing allure of art, Downey, obviously the joker in the relationship, teases his friend constantly, and the artist blushes nonstop.

On Parents

Both men were born to fathers in the business that they too would eventually enter. In the case of Keene, the men in his family have been painters for more than a hundred years. (His grandfather was an official World War II artist, while his father, who has exhibited at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters and the Royal Watercolour Society in London, still paints every day at the age of 84.) “You get used to the smell of turpentine,” Keene says. “Suddenly you can’t really think of anything else to do…and then you get a painting kit for every birthday and every Christmas, so it was like, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” Downey asks his friend if his father was supportive. “He was,” Keene says. “He’d also say, ‘Don’t be an artist,’ because he didn’t want me to struggle like he did.”

For Downey, the situation was all too familiar. His father, Robert Downey Sr., rose to fame in the 1960s as a director, actor and producer in the New York underground film scene. His movie “Putney Swope,” a send-up of Madison Avenue, became a cult classic. Robert made his acting debut in his father’s film “Pound” at the age of five. “You know, [what you're saying] makes sense because I feel too like I didn’t have a choice—it wasn’t like I was going to be an architect,” says Downey on his lineage. “I was raised with a camera rolling, and my dad was always making these movies—either on sets or rolling 16MM at home—it just seemed like the normal thing.”

Both men started at the bottom, with Downey acting in off-Broadway plays and Keene taking odd jobs to pay for materials. “I paint compulsively—I do everything obsessively no matter what job I’ve ever had,” Keene says. At this, Downey literally guffaws. “What other job have you really ever had?” Keene reminds him of the time he chipped concrete out in the Valley after an earthquake, and his mode of transportation was none other than the actor’s Porsche. Recognition sparks on Downey’s face. “Oh yeah! That car was repossessed eventually.”

On Work

Downey admits that his knowledge of art is still a work in progress, and with this friendship has come an education. Through years of collecting, Downey’s acquisitions include works by the abstract painter Roni Stretch and street artist Shepard Fairey. But the majority are works by Keene. “You like things that are quite powerful,” Keene says to his friend. “You don’t like pretty pictures. You like Egon Schiele, so very dark, very powerful figurative painters. I guess I fit into that category to a certain degree, with some weight in it for sure.” Downey quickly responds: “Speaking of weight, you’ve taken off quite a bit of poundage. You look gorgeous. There was expansive Toby there for the better part of a decade.” Keene blushes at his friend’s compliment. “I think I’ve lost about 20; I was getting somewhat Schnabelesque.”

All told, the Downeys own about a dozen of Keene’s works. Perhaps the most important is a massive triptych, entitled “Until the Sun Turns Black,” which features Robert and Susan underneath a large tree. It sits on a wall outside the offices of their production company in Venice. Keene couldn’t use regular paint because the sun and the elements would ruin it, so he used gold-leaf metals in blue, gold and green. “It’s beautiful,” Downey muses. “And it’s something we would never sell. How long will it last?” Keene’s response: “Until the day I die, because I’ll keep touching it up.”

Keene is equally enthusiastic about Downey’s craft. He recalls visiting Downey on the set of the 1995 film “Restoration” one morning when the actor was suddenly handed five new script pages: “He read them through quickly and then walked onto the set and did them without having to refer back—verbatim. He has an almost photographic memory.” While Downey had the script down cold, one of the other actors didn’t. Downey didn’t need to stick around for the scene, but he did anyway. “Robert uses an incredible amount of self-discipline to shape his characters, and he’ll stay in that frame of mind to help the other people around him. It’s that great Downey generosity.”

On Wives

It’s not really fair, according to Downey, to talk about Keene’s career without talking about Chong, his wife of 20 years. It was through Chong and Downey’s ex-wife, Deborah Falconer, that the two men first met. “She doesn’t have a brush in her hand,” says Downey. “But whatever has occurred in his career has to do with her. When you’re creative, you never turn off. It gets intense sometimes, and you want to find a partner who will work for both of you.”

Suffice it to say, Susan Downey is at the epicenter of her husband’s career. (They met on the set of “Gothika,” which she produced. It was one of the first films he made after he got sober.) “With Robert being such a magnetic, creative person, Susan is the perfect match in channeling it into what we see now—their incredibly successful partnership,” Keene says. “Susan is his safety, his sounding board, his protector and his grounding force.” Rarely does one see either man without his better half. “We’re very dynamic gentlemen, I would like to say that. But we also know our place,” says Downey with a laugh.

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