entertainer of the year 2008 - part 4

Downey, though, saw Tropic Thunder as a blissful getaway. ''Ben Stiller saved me from the ghastly fate of a crash after shooting Iron Man,'' he says. ''The waiting around, the expectations, the not knowing how it was going to come out.'' There were other distractions as well. While shooting in Hawaii, Downey got a visit from British filmmaker Joe Wright, who pitched him the part of Steve Lopez, the newspaper columnist who tries to help a homeless Juilliard dropout. ''Joe shows up in Kauai, in the middle of the jungle, wearing a trilby hat,'' Downey recalls, ''and he tells me this story about friendship and faith. All of a sudden I start feeling all my old theater heartstrings being pulled. Before Joe left the island, I knew I'd be doing The Soloist.'' Downey started work on the film in early 2008, after he returned from making Tropic Thunderin Hawaii.

As it turned out, Downey didn't have to worry about Iron Man at all. Its $98.6 million May 2 opening weekend made it the biggest superhero franchise launch since Spider-Man. Downey grins when he remembers the night his numbers came in. ''It's Friday evening, and we're all in a side room at a restaurant in Santa Monica,'' he says. ''And every few minutes the estimates go up. 'The estimate is now 77! The estimate is now 87! The estimate is now 100!' And I'm going crazy because I've had 25 Cokes and three cappuccinos. I'm like, 'Come on, give me another lucky seven! Give me money!''' The euphoria didn't end there. ''About 10 days later, Jon Favreau and I were invited to this dinner with [Paramount CEO] Brad Grey and all these assorted heavyweights,'' Downey continues. ''Jon and I give each other a look, like we were made men or something. Iron Man hadput us in the game.''

IT'S A NIPPY SUNDAY morning at an old shipyard-turned-museum about an hour outside London. An ancient torch-lit tavern has been outfitted with a 19th-century boxing ring, where Downey has been shooting a scene in which he shows off Sherlock Holmes' pugilistic expertise. Judging from the footage playing on the monitor — the shirtless star trading slo-mo blows with a hulking brute twice his size — Downey's version of the detective won't be spending much time puffing a pipe or examining stuff with a magnifying glass. No, this Sherlock has kung fu moves. ''In Arthur Conan Doyle's stories, there are references to the fact that Holmes practiced martial arts,'' notes Downey, wincing while watching the action on the monitor. ''In the books, there's a physical side to the character. So we're just extrapolating from the original material.''