Chris Smith Directed “Sr.”, A Lovely Film On R. Downey Jr. & His Father
‘We can’t paint a rosy picture’: Robert Downey Sr’s life of drugs, taboo-busting films and parental regrets
Robert Downey Jr. Reveals Making of Sr. was Improvisational
Indewire Interview on Downey Jr and Chris Smith
Making “‘Sr.’” was a transformative experience for both Downey and Smith, with the latter saying it had a “huge profound impact” on the way he shoots and directs future projects. “Robert says early on, ‘My dad’s a lover of process.’ And I felt like that was something that was always with me during the process of making this film. And I do so many other films that are done in a different way, that there was something very exciting and it reminded me of how I started, which is like on this film called ‘American Movie,’ where it was me with a camera on my shoulder, little to no crew, just trying to figure it out as we went along. And to me, that’s the most exciting,” said Smith.
Many of us not so familiar with Robert Downey Sr. learn from watching this documentary that Robert Downey Sr. appeared in “Boogie Nights”, or that Senior and Paul Thomas Anderson were close friends. (Many of their conversations were on youtube).
Watch this,
Paul Thomas Anderson & Robert Downey Sr Talk Putney Swope/
Because of “Jim and Andy: The Great Beyond”, the producer suggested that Chris Smith contact Robert Downey Jr to make his documentary.
(Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond” .)
(The Pool in Goa)
Chris Smith Interview – Filmmaker
Filmmaker: When did you first read Randy Russell’s short story? And when did you decide you want to transpose it to Goa?
Smith: I’m always looking for something that looks interesting and engaging. For me, it was one of those stories that I read and then came back to. It just sort of stuck with me; it was so simple and some of the themes seemed so universal. I thought back to the experience I had when I was in India about four or five years ago helping some friends shoot a movie, where we were living at that hotel and interacting with the roomboys and getting a sense of their lives. The idea of putting those two worlds together seemed really interesting to me, and I thought the two could be combined in a way that could provide a lot of rich material to work from.
2)The kids didn’t know how to read so for me it was more important to get a good performance than to get word-for-word.