Soccer at 4, recital on Thursday, and parent-teacher conference the following morning. Parenthood means becoming a master of Schedule Tetris, finding ways to make impossible obligations actually work. Robert Downey Jr. had one of the most unique experiences with that this weekend when he squeezed in attending the 2024 Oscars while making it to his kids’ ball games.
Downey has two children with his current wife of 18 years, Susan (née Levin), with the couple sharing 12-year-old Exton and nine-year-old Avri. In 1993, he also welcomed son Indio with his then-wife Deborah Falconer. There was some real competition between Downey and Susan to attend the kids’ ball game.
Robert Downey Jr. coordinated attending his kids’ ball games on the same weekend as the 2024 Oscars
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Here was this week’s parent puzzle: Exton had Little League and Avri had a softball game. Which parent would attend which activity, the same stretch of time that the Oscars were fast approaching? In fact, the 96th Academy Awards were the very next evening.
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“They were both starting pitchers,” boasted 58-year-old Downey, emphasizing just how important this matter was. A child’s pride and the fate of the game could depend on this. “We had to divide and conquer.” That meant Susan attended Avri’s game while Downey was there for Little League.
Parenthood and platitude
Between attending the kids’ ball games, Downey has been at plenty of ceremonies this award season thanks to his critically acclaimed performance in 2023’s Oppenheimer, which saw him playing the conniving, bureaucratic Lewis Strauss.
Even then, though, his family wasn’t far from his mind as Downey delivered his speech after winning the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. While he gave a special thanks to his “terrible” childhood – which oscillated between wealth and poverty and saw him and his dad use drugs as an expression of love for one another – Downey also voiced gratitude for his family, especially for his wife.
“She found me a snarling rescue pet and loved me back to life,” he said. “That’s why I’m here.” Indeed, after an extended period of drug abuse, legal problems, rehab, rinse and repeat, Downey ended up drug-free in 2003, a feat he attributed to the support he received from his wife, calling her “the font of all good things.”
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