Downey on the advice that changed his life:
The greatest thing my dad taught me came one day when I called him from a phone booth and said, “Hungry. No bus token. Please. Out of options. Friends aren’t picking up the phone.”
He said, “Pfft, get a job.”
I couldn’t believe it. He just completely stiffed me. I thought I had this guy by some sort of guilt hook still. I thought I could at least get five bucks or something. He said, “Call your friends.”
I said, “I called them.”
He said, “Get a job.”
I said, “Dad, where am I going to get a job in enough time to get a paycheck and eat a slice of pizza?”
He said, “Enough.”
And you know what, I made do. The next phone call was to some Irish chick whose dad was out of town, and I wound up over at her place. And pretty soon I had a job. I wouldn’t wish that lesson on an enemy. But, you know, sometimes you just gotta be drop-kicked out of the nest. And by the way, I don’t think those lessons are exclusive to your formative years. I think that human beings tend to keep re-creating some secret, covert mess as they go along. What do they call it in pop psychology — your comfort zone? I have such a deep empathy for seeing someone’s private Idaho crushed. But it’s the only thing that ever really gets you to the next level, right?
