未来主义者：走下银幕的《钢铁侠》

    你还会再出一张专辑吗？

    当然。艺坛的跨界通常是“演而优则唱”，不过现在这种情况可能不像以前那么普遍了。但是我们越来越经常在电影里看到音乐人的身影。比如我在电影《音乐拯救人生》（Can a Song Save Your Life?）里看到了魔力红乐队的主唱亚当•李维，然后我给他打了电话，跟他交上了朋友，因为我意识到他就是一个可以实现这种转换的人。我没有看过贾斯汀•汀布莱克参演的《醉乡民谣》（Inside Llewyn Davis），但我听说他也可以做到这一点。

    现在这个时代，作为信息时代的副产品，你可能不用费太大力气就能玩一把跨界——只要你能做得好。至于我自己，我从小就爱唱歌、作曲、搞音乐剧，我总想有朝一日写一出音乐剧。我在作曲或执行上一直有点笨，玩乐器也不是特别擅长，但我的词写得够好，而且唱得也不赖。

    你有一家名叫Team Downey的制片公司，你对这家公司的愿景是什么？你和你妻子苏珊怎样看你们在这家公司的领导角色？

    我认识苏珊之前，她的制片事业就已经发展得非常好，后来她开始参与我主演的电影的制片。后来我俩发现，我俩真正想做的是一起做自己的电影，这个想法让我们兴奋不已。我们刚刚一起制作了一部名叫《审判》（Judge）的电影，明年秋天就会推出。我俩经常讨论我们共同喜爱的那一百部电影。我们的愿景就是，我们希望我们自己制作的电影也能做到像那些片子一样。而且我们发现，我俩对电影的感觉也非常一致。

    这种感觉就像一个风投资本家对一个大一点的公司的感觉一样。我们已经和制片公司华纳兄弟（Warner Brothers）建立了合作关系。我们不仅不想让华纳兄弟损失一分钱，还想让他们觉得我们是最能让他们赚到钱的人之一，另外他们也非常欣赏我们的艺术品味。

    过去十年左右的时间里，我听说做电影也是能速成的。有时间我会告诉你，这样做是最糟糕的，因为从某种程度上这就是以身试火，非常徒劳。

    我认为做制片公司的光荣之处就是，你要非常在乎怎样帮别人实现他们的目标，这和当一个以自我为中心的演员恰恰相反。

    当你把亚当•李维这样的人召集起来时，你是想通过Team Downey为自己物色人才吗？

    我知道我终于拿到了入场券，可以通过这个公司创造点什么。我注意到许多成功的人和幸运的人，他们都不怕走出自己的“舒适区”，勇于拿起电话联系别人，而且我想对方大概也不介意和他们聊一聊。

    这种感觉有点像上高中的时候，你不想在通讯录上看着某人的名字时战战兢兢地想：“还是晚点再打吧”。我还发现，如果你在任何一个行业干得比较杰出的话，一个最大的好处就是，你和别人总是可以有某种关联，而且我发现我与别人主动联系得还不够。我经常在脑子里想象和别人对话的场景，但实际上我一般不太主动去结识别人。我正在努力改变这一点，因为我觉得人们生活中几乎所有新的冒险都是从这儿来的。

    Would you make another album?

    Sure. The crossover, usually from cinema to music, is taken less favorably than perhaps it used to be. Yet there are some iconic people who are music entertainers appearing in film more regu¬larly. I saw [Maroon 5 singer] Adam Levine in Can a Song Save Your Life? and I called him and befriended him because I real¬ized that he's one of those people who can make that transition. Justin Timberlake I haven't seen Inside Llewyn Davis, but I hear that he can, too.

    But I think this is just a time when the borders, probably a byproduct of the information age, the borders are -- you can blur them without as much squelch or as much feedback as you might -- provided you do it well. As far as for my own explanation, I was raised singing in madrigals and composing music and doing musicals off-Broadway and have been, you know, thinking about writing a musical for some time. So I mean, I've kind of always been -- I'm a little bit stupid when it comes to composition or execution, and I'm not a very good player, but I write well enough and I can sing pretty well.

    You have a production company, Team Downey. What is your vision for it, and how do you and Susan think about your roles as leaders of that organization?

    Susan had a perfectly sound (producing) career before we met, and she started producing the films I was starring in. And then the real aha moment was when we decided what we really would like to do is develop our own material do to together. And we had just had our first experience with that in this film called Judge, which will be out next fall. And our vision has always been we kind of tend to like and talk about the same hundred movies when we're referring to films we would like the films we're doing to be like. And so we realized we had a very kind of simpatico sensibility.

    Ultimately really it comes down to it's kind of like being a venture capitalist for a bigger organization in that, you know, we are in a relationship with a studio (Warner Brothers) and not only do we not want to lose them a penny, we want them to feel that we're one of their great earners, and also that they really appreciate our sensibilities artistically.

    What I've had over the last decade or so is a crash course in producing, which on some days I would tell you is the absolute worst job in the world because certain aspects of it are like being a volunteer fire person. And it's very thankless.

    There's -- I guess the glory in it is that you're someone who really cares about helping other people achieve their goals. And so it's been the exact opposite of being a kind of a self-centered actor.

    When you call up someone like Adam Levine, are you looking at talent through the lens of Team Downey?

    Some part of me knows that there's an entrée by virtue of the fact that I actually have an entity where we could develop something. But the real this is, you know, and I think one of the keys to me that I notice with people who are -- kind of make their own luck and are fortunate people and tend to do well is they do step out of their comfort zone, and they do put in a phone call to someone that they're I guess more than likely imagining wouldn't mind speaking to them either.

    It's still kind of like high school in a way. You know, you wonder -- like you never want to wind up on someone's phone sheet as a you know, "later." Or, like, priority three. But I also think that one of the great things about being in any industry where you have any prominence whatsoever is that you have -- there's a supposed kind of connectedness, you know? And I find that I really don't reach out enough. You know, I think about people and I have a conversation with them in my head, but I don't -- I tend to not like reach out and want to make new connections. And it's something that I've been efforting to change because I think that that's where all the new adventures in people's lives come from.