‘I Was as Much of a Chaplin Expert as Anyone’

Oppenheimer star Robert Downey Jr. has spoken about his experience of preparing for the 1992 Richard Attenborough movie Chaplin.

What did Robert Downey Jr. say about working on Chaplin?

In a Vanity Fair video about his career, Downey Jr. delved into how actor and acrobat Johnny Hutch helped him learn about Charlie Chaplin and his choreography.

“Chaplin was an absolute gift and a real bear of a challenge for someone who’s 25 when they started prepping to do it, but there were all these people that were still around — just barely still around,” the actor explained. “Johnny Hutch, who came from The Benny Hill Show and he knew the guy who really had done these choreographed things at the Karno Theater with Chaplin, so he actually had access to some of the books of really what the choreography was for some of this stuff. And he drilled me incessantly for months and months and months.”

Downey Jr. then stated that he was an expert on Chaplin when filming, then revealed a moment where, after he corrected several details in the movie, director Richard Attenborough reminded him that they were making a movie, not a documentary.

“I employed every single way I could try to show up for that role. When you’re 25 and you’re given the keys to the kingdom, you’re going to probably to come out of center. Maybe out of fear, maybe out of confidence. And for me — at that point, not to boast — I was as much of a Chaplin expert as anyone involved in the project. And I was making corrections to the things that were factually and historically inaccurate, to which Attenborough said, ‘But poppet, we’re making a film, not a documentary.’”

Chaplin was released in 1992 and was written by William Boyd, Bryan Forbes, and William Goldman and directed by Richard Attenborough. It starred Robert Downey Jr., Dan Aykroyd, Geraldine Chaplin, Kevin Dunn, Anthony Hopkins, Milla Jovovich, Moira Kelly, Kevin Kline, Diane Lane, Penelope Ann Miller, Paul Rhys, John Thaw, Marisa Tomei, Nancy Travis, and James Woods.