Robert Downey Jr. makes a threesome joke, because that’s his job

Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! Here comes the cast of TIFF 2014 opener, The Judge: Robert Downey Jr., Robert Duvall, Vera Farmiga, Vincent D’Onofrio (from Men In Black), Dax Shepard (from Idiocracy), Jeremy Strong (from The Judge) and director David Dobkin (Fred Claus, some other punchline movies). Following last night’s big premiere, the cast and producers gathered to talk about making character-driven films in an age of big-budget superhero blockbusters, which, of course, is ironic given that star/producer Robert Downey Jr. made a zillion dollars playing Iron Man.

The cast, not at all ostentatiously, compared themselves to a Picasso painting, as well as a jazz band. They also spoke at length about the rehearsal process (the cast “really had their skin in it,” said Downey). While you’d expect this thing to be RDJ’s show, and for everyone else to be brushed aside by the sheer force of his presence, Downey was surprisingly restrained, as if deliberately trying not to be that guy.

He did have his moments, though. For instance, he made a funny (read: actually kind of sad) joke about “saving money on therapy” by working through some of his real life daddy issues (with actor/director Robert Downey Sr.) by acting out a father-son relationship with co-star Robert Duvall. And when Farmiga, who plays Downey’s first love in the film, started talking about the process of working through her relationship with her co-star, Downey chimed in. “It was really a threesome with the director,” he said to a laugh from the crowd. “It became this three-headed relationship, two of whom were free to make love whenever they wanted to.”