Yay! Robert Downey Jr. and Susan Downey welcomed their first child together yesterday morning. It was a boy, which Robert had already revealed a few months ago. Robert already has a fully grown son, Indio, from his first marriage, but this little boy is Susan’s first baby. So… the name! They named him Exton Elias Downey. Er, Exton? I’m fine with Elias – in fact, I think that would have been a lovely first name, Elias Downey. Eli Downey. Little Eli! But Exton? Little Ex? Or would you abbreviate “Ext”? That’s a one-syllable mouthful.

It’s a boy for Robert Downey Jr.!

Wife Susan delivered son Exton Elias Downey at 7:24 a.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 7 in Los Angeles, his rep confirms to PEOPLE.

“Everyone is healthy and they couldn’t be happier,” a friend of the couple says.
Baby boy weighs in at 7 lbs., 5 oz., is 20 inches long and joins big brother Indio, 18, Downey’s son from his previous marriage.

After announcing the pregnancy in August, the Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows star, 46, revealed the sex of the baby on national television, much to his producer wife’s (feigned) chagrin.

“I could never really stay mad at him, but I can tell you it genuinely wasn’t something we planned to reveal,” Susan, 38, later explained.

Thankfully, her husband — who will next star in The Avengers — did manage to keep quiet about their name choice.

“If I told you the name, then she would lop off my head with a machete,” joked Downey.

[From People]

I imagine the name has some kind of significance to one or both of them, considering it sounds like they had the name all picked out before the baby was born. Maybe it was a family name on Susan’s side…? Whatever, it’s not that important. I’m really glad that Susan had an easy and uncomplicated pregnancy and birth and that everybody is healthy and happy. I swear to God, THIS is the couple that can never split up. I will cry my eyes out if anything ever happens to them. I love them together. I love how smart and sassy Susan is, and how Robert worships her. Sigh… if only.

Oh, and I wonder how the baby is going to do with his cat brothers, Monty and Dart! RDJ loves those cats. He would lay down in traffic for those cats.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

During last night’s Superbowl we were treated to a teaser trailer for the upcoming Avengers movie, featuring Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Jeremy Renner, Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo and Samuel L. Jackson. This is the second trailer for the much-anticipated superhero film, which is out on May 4th. The first trailer made the move look more like a clusterf*ck than a coordinated Justice League. (I’m aware that they’re different comics/superheroes.)

They seem to have nailed down the plot in order to come with this more cohesive trailer featuring more scenes of crap getting blown up. This trailer makes the film look more interesting than it did before, but it also has a unreal video game feel that seems all too familiar and overdone. How many movies have we seen with cars exploding and rolling down the street in a wave?

Some thoughts:
They’re very cleverly focusing on all the key parts of the film: the special effects, the individual superheroes played by well known actors, their work as a team, and the pithy one-liners. My favorite part is at :50 when Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) is told by baddie Loki (Tom Hiddleston) that “We have an army” and he quips “We have a Hulk.” We then get to see Mark Ruffalo flying through the air as the most badass Hulk I’ve ever seen. Scarlet Johannson is sexy as Black Widow in that tight catsuit, but I like how they’re balancing out the talent in the film and not trying to push her as the star.

The Avengers could be a huge moneymaker for Disney and Marvel or it could be a spectacular flop. Rumor has it that it cost over $250 million to make. Look at what happened with Green Lantern. Warner Brothers really took a bath on that one. Superhero films are no longer the safest bet.

There’s news that Andrew Garfield as Spiderman is going to make a cameo as cross promotion for the new Spidey film, out this July. Can they make the movie work with this many stars? We’ll see.

Photos via Allmoviephoto

For better or for worse, we (I) make fun of Tom Cruise’s lifts all of the time. Tom is a shorter-than-average man, but he really, really wants people to think he’s a super-butch action star, so he wears lifts (or high heels, as I call them) all of the time, on and off the set. This isn’t so shocking really, I just like to look at Tom Cruise photos and try to spot where the “hidden” lift part of the shoe starts, and I always get a kick out of Tom trying to pull off skinny jeans and high heels. Over the years, I’ve also noticed that Robert Downey Jr., a fellow short dude, also wears lifts, although RDJ’s lifts aren’t a Tom-Cruise-level, OCD compulsion. RDJ seems to wear lifts for his job, when he’s filming a movie and he wants to look the same height as… Gwyneth Paltrow, I guess. In red carpet appearances, RDJ either wears sneakers with an extra inch of sole, or he just wears regular dress shoes.

Anyway, Us Weekly has a funny little story about RDJ’s special-order of some 3-inch heels. They’re for a movie, for the love of God!

Robert Downey Jr. needs a raise! Us Weekly’s Hot Stuff has learned that a fashion stylist for the 5-foot-8 actor, 46, has asked a custom shoe company to create 3-inch lifts for him to wear while filming Iron Man 3 in North Carolina this spring.

“They’re working on a special pair just for him,” reveals the source, adding, “The lift insole needs to be concealed in a high-top shoe or boot. The highest that’s offered to the general public is 2 inches!”

[From Us Weekly, print edition]

So here’s a question: why am I not delighted by this? Tom Cruise’s lifts are a source of constant amusement to me, but with Robert, it just feels like… meh. Of course, I’m of the opinion that RDJ is just wearing lifts for his job, to look taller on screen, and that he’s fine with his height and his body in real life. If his height really does bother him, though? That might bug me. Short guys can be sexy! They just have to own it.

…OK, now that I’m looking at some photos of his red carpet kicks… yeah, he’s wearing really HIGH heels. Damn it, Robert! Don’t go all Cruise. Own your height.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Here are some shots from Robert Downey Jr.’s January/February cover of Men’s Fitness (the American version). RDJ is promoting Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, which I saw over the holidays. I liked it, but I didn’t love it. I LOVED the first Sherlock, and I appreciated that they did a lot of Jude Law-RDJ/Watson-Holmes bromance in the sequel, and I also liked Noomi Rapace’s Gypsy character a lot. There’s a ton of action, and there are some really cool sequences and stuff (I loved the part with Watson and the cannon), but it was like they were trying to jam so much cool stuff in there that some of the story got lost. Holmes spent too much time being an action hero and not enough time ruminating on all of his plots. Still, it’s worth a viewing. I just prefer the first one.

Anyway, here are some excerpts from RDJ’s cover story – I particularly like the story about his rescue kittens. I actually squealed a little.

About playing Tony Stark in Iron Man: “I guess I had some notion about [being an action hero]. I think I wanted to be able to look good and defend myself and all that stuff. I’ve always really enjoyed that genre, but I mean, it’s pretty outlandish. I’m not particularly tall or strong or fast or aggressive. Yet, I’m not faking it. To me, it’s a cosmic chuckle.”

On his wife Susan: “What can I even say about her? I’m crazy about her. Everybody’s opinion isn’t right all the time, but as far as averages go, if she wants to, she could hit to the same seat in the bleachers over and over and over again. That sort of consistency is awe-inspiring. We give each other the freedom to explore who and what we really are, which is great, because we’re always changing. I know I’ve changed a fair amount over the last decade, but she’s changed 10 times more than I have.”

On rescuing two kittens, Montgomery and Dartanian (Monty & Dart): “To understand the way cats play and fight is to understand the secrets of the universe. It’s to understand Wing Chun, to understand the palace tradition, to understand yoga. I would kill for these young, sweet little feline souls, these two boys. I would protect them with my life. Eighteen months ago, I’m saying, ‘I don’t want any rescue pets within 100 yards of either of my residences, I’m sorry. I don’t want some, like, tripod, abused animal.’ I was adamantly opposed to the whole idea. And now I couldn’t imagine living without them. I’ve become one of those people where the Missus is like, ‘They don’t want to see iPhone pictures of our kittens right now. Stop it.’ And I can’t watch those commercials [for animal cruelty prevention] anymore. They kill me.”

[From Just Jared & the print edition]

It makes sense that RDJ is a cat person. He’s got the personality of a cat person, and I’m getting a little bit choked up, imagining him with two little kittens on his lap, his new happy place. I wish more men could admit that they love cats. Nothing makes me weaker in the knees (and other body parts) than a man with a cat. Maybe it’s just that I really want a cat these days… but Monty & Dart sound like they won the daddy lottery, right? Oh, then imagine RDJ and Susan’s newborn baby with the kittens. SQUEAL.

Photos courtesy of Men’s Fitness.

Here are photos from last night’s London premiere of Sherlock Holmes 2: A Game of Shadows. How much would you love to be Noomi Rapace right now, in the middle of that sandwich? So… Robert Downey Jr. or Jude Law? Sherlock Holmes or Dr. Watson? The obvious choice (for us dirty slores) is “BOTH. Right here, right now.” But if you had to choose… which would it be? Jude Law could get you pregnant with just a look. And Jude’s got the impossible prettiness, although the pretty has been weathered by time. Robert’s kind of vampire at this point – he’s 46 years old, and all of those drugs he used to do just preserved him. He’s the most youthful-seeming 46 year old. Oh, and he’s really hot too. And he has so much energy, and he’s brilliant. So… brilliant, energetic with a young soul or pretty and pregnant? Sigh…would you like more pretty?

Noomi Rapace’s dress is Carolina Herrera. Isn’t it terrible? I’m also including a photo of Sherlock director Guy Ritchie and his baby-mama Jacqui – doesn’t Guy just look super-thrilled? Yeah.

This is one of my favorite photos – I love Jude Law for stopping and straightening Noomi’s train. That’s such a lovely and chivalrous thing to do for a lady, right? God, I love Jude. He could totally get me pregnant. I bet Noomi is pregnant right now.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Sherlock Holmes 2: A Game of Shadows premiered last night in LA. Jude Law/Dr. Watson was not in attendance, which is disappointing. For the last Sherlock promotional blitz, it was pretty much The Jude & Robert Show, with their bromance flourishing on every red carpet. Last night, Robert Downey Jr. just posed with his lovely, pregnant wife Susan, and they looked lovely together.

But the person I was really interested in was Noomi Rapace, otherwise known as “The Original Lisbeth Salander” in the Swedish films of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and the rest of the Millennium Trilogy. Noomi got a lot of attention from Hollywood with her portrayal of Lisbeth, and it’s possible for her to have a big career in English-language films now. Her performance in Sherlock Holmes 2 is seen as sort-of the canary in the coal mine – if she does well, and the film does well, Noomi has arrived. So this was a big red carpet for her – and I can’t say that I’m impressed. Noomi wore this Valentino that… it’s just not young enough. It’s too lacy and precious for my tastes, and then there’s the issue of her hair, which doesn‘t match the “glamour” of the dress. I just don’t want to start in about what is happening with those bangs. She has a beautiful face, and she doesn’t need them. Urgh!!!

Also in attendance – Rachel McAdams, wearing this Marchesa gown. I like the Marchesa better than Noomi’s Valentino, which speaks volumes about how much I hate Noomi’s dress, but isn’t necessarily a compliment for Rachel’s dress. I will give Rachel credit for this, though – she looks season-appropriate. I like that she’s wearing a long-sleeved winter dress in December. Otherwise, meh.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

At the end of August, Robert Downey Jr. and his wife Susan confirmed that they’re expecting their first child together. RDJ is already a father to an 18-year-old son named Indio (who he is reportedly very close to). Not only will this be Susan and Robert’s first kid together, but it will be his first time to experience fatherhood from the beginning while sober. I’m really looking forward to hearing about it, basically. Robert can describe anything to sound like a Kerouacian adventure, and it will be a hoot to hear him describe the birth and the day-to-day dealings of a newborn. For now, though, we get to hear Robert describe how his wife’s pregnancy is super-hard on HIM. Oh, and they’re having a boy!

Robert Downey Jr. and his wife Susan Levin are expecting a boy! The 46-year-old actor spilled the beans Monday night on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. “I am not permitted to discuss it,” he quipped. “I can’t say a word… We’re having a boy!”

The Iron Man star, who told Leno his baby-to-be is due in “late February,” is also dad to an 18-year-old son named Indio with his first wife Deborah Falconer.

“I don’t wanna be presumptuous,” he joked. “But I think actually [the pregnancy] has been tougher on me [than Susan!]… Just the hormones on and the mood stuff and the nausea and the whole thing.”

“I gotta be careful,” he added playfully. “I am gonna have to see my wife some time after doing this segment with you, and I think I’m already in trouble.”

The actor, who kicked his drug and alcohol addiction over six years ago. told Leno he plans to be a very involved dad.

He also appears to be a pretty good husband. Last month, the Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows star took his pregnant wife on a romantic Hawaiian getaway.

So will he continue help his wife when the baby’s born, even when it comes to changing dirty diapers? “That’s just poop,” he told E! News in October. “That’s no big deal.”

[From Us Weekly]

Robert Downey III? God, I hope not. I hope they give the kid his own unique name. I really was hoping that Robert would have a daughter, though. I just think he would be great with a little girl, and she might… I don’t know, calm him down a bit. But I’m sure a boy will do the same. Robert and Susan are one of my favorite Hollywood couples, so I hope they continue to do really well together.

God, I’m so looking forward to Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Some celebrities use their American Cinematheque Award celebration to highlight some cause that they’re involved with – like Matt Damon. When Matt was recognized with the lifetime achievement award, he used the moment to highlight his work in Africa. Other celebrities use the award ceremony as just a fun night with friends. And then there’s Robert Downey Jr., who used his night to highlight his special cause: being friends with Mel Gibson. Mel was at RDJ’s American Cinematheque ceremony – not only that, but Mel posed with RDJ, they buddied up for the cameras, and RDJ passionately defended Mel in his speech.

Now, before this, RDJ has shown public signs of his support of Mel. He “refused to criticize” Mel (and Charlie Sheen), basically claiming that he (RDJ) has a very sketchy past, and he’s not going to judge other dudes for their sketchiness. It wasn’t a passionate defense, and for the most part, Robert has avoided the kind of gross-by-association taint that Jodie Foster has gotten with her relationship to Mel. I talked about the difference in the situations previously. But now something has changed – RDJ just put his reputation, his backing, his support fully behind the dude who will demand a beej before he kills you and buries you in the garden.

Mel Gibson has a real friend in Robert Downey Jr. Friday night Downey, 46, accepted an American Cinematheque Award in Beverly Hills, and the actor used his time on stage to ask Hollywood to forgive Gibson, 55.

“Unless you are without sin — and if you are, you are in the wrong f**king industry — you should forgive him and let him work,” the Iron Man star said.

Downey, who famously struggled with substance abuse himself in the past, costarred with Gibson in the 1990 film Air America. “He taught me many things, and I will use the ‘C’ word — courage,” Downey said. “There’s nothing so much wrong with him. Of course you have to worry about the guy making the judgment here. He’s a good dude with a good heart.

Gibson has been open about his battle with alcoholism; throughout the years he has been repeatedly taped making offensive, anti-Semitic remarks, including a drunken rant during a 2006 arrest in Malibu. In March, he pled no contest for one misdemeanor count of spousal battery, related to a Jan. 6, 2010 incident with his ex Oksana Grigorieva. During the pair’s custody case for their 23-month-old daughter Lucia, Gibson admitted, “I slapped Oksana with an open hand in an attempt to bring her back to reality.”

But Downey, who is proudly clean and sober today, isn’t about to judge Gibson. “Mel and I have the same lawyer, same publicist, and same shrink. I couldn’t get hired and he cast me,” Downey said. “He said if I accepted responsibility — he called it hugging the cactus — long enough, my life would take meaning. And if he helped me, I would help the next guy. But it was not reasonable to expect the next guy would be him.”

[From Us Weekly]

I have such mixed feelings. Ugh. On one side, I know that Robert truly feels beholden to Mel, and like there’s a debt that Robert still needs to repay. I think RDJ found his decency in sobriety, and he believes that people can change, can become better and whole, and that everyone derives a second chance. Those are noble things to believe in, and it makes him a good person, worthy of admiration and emulation. On the other side… Robert just stood up for a dude who fist beat the crap out of his girlfriend (and her son), then stalked, harassed and threatened the girlfriend when she dared to leave him. That sucks, for lack of a better word.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

The cast of The Avengers covers this week’s issue of Entertainment Weekly in a wholly bizarre manner. Robert Downey Jr. (as always) fares well in his Tony Stark persona; Scarlett Johansson wields two guns as Black Widow but appears to be missing her shoulders; Chris Hemsworth looks more like Fabio on the cover of a Harlequin romance novel than Thor; Chris Evans (who, sadly, isn’t flashing his waxed nipples) seems ready to burst into tears; and I’m not exactly sure whether Mark Ruffalo knows that his Bruce Banner character is supposed to be, you know, an angry man. What really trips me out though is the amount of Photoshopping that’s been applied to Jeremy Renner’s face — he looks more like a Hawkeye action figure than the real life counterpart. Such a waste. EW has also released a few tidbits from its cover story:

The whole enterprise is falling apart. Egos, tempers, uneasy alliances and bad attitudes are threatening the group, and failure would be catastrophic. Luckily, we’re talking about the actual team of superheroes in the Marvel Studios movie The Avengers, not the cast and crew. In this week’s issue, EW takes a deep dive into the May 4, 2012 movie that will finally unite Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man, Chris Hemsworth’s Thor, and Chris Evans’ Captain America – along with Mark Ruffalo’s The Incredible Hulk, Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye and Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow — on the big screen. We use the word “unite” loosely. “Just because they’re super heroes doesn’t mean they’re super friends,” says Renner.

It was a different story with the cast and crew: If anything, they got along too well. Far from home on the Albuquerque set, they had little to do except hang out together, maybe hit a Motley Cruë concert, or go dancing with writer-director Joss Whedon, who says he knew “every dance club in Albuquerque.” Whedon was actually counting on a little bit of friction, since there’s so much in the actual story. “I was like, well, if they hate each other, I guess we can use that,” he shrugs. “But they don’t.”

When he wasn’t out dancing, Whedon was obsessively rewriting dialogue. On the Iron Man movies, Downey was notorious for pushing for heat-of-the-moment script punch-ups (or as he puts it: “I dominated like a rabid, horny gorilla”). And even as part of an ensemble in Avengers, he still nudged Whedon to go a little farther in some scenes. The day EW was on set, Whedon (the creator of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and the acclaimed Astonishing X-Men comic book series) was scribbling out new pages of dialogue right before our eyes. Says the director, “There is a weird element of: they handed me one of the biggest movies of all time, and I’m making it up as I go.”

[From Popwatch]

The box office for this movie is going to be phenomenal, and the careers of everyone (except maybe Renner and RDJ, who are already doing quite well in their other acting endeavors) involved will receive a much-needed boost. Mostly though, the actor who will benefit most from The Avengers is Scarlett. Until she signed on (for a relatively measly $400,000 paycheck) as Black Widow in Iron Man 2, her career had turned into a series of failed period dramas, romcoms, and whatever Woody Allen happened to be filming at the time. Now, she’s part of a superhero franchise. Who would have ever thought it was possible?

Now let’s return to gazing upon (Kaiser already brought you an initial batch) some set photos from The Avengers scenes that shot in New York City early this month.

Photos courtesy of WENN

Robert Downey Jr. covers the new issue of GQ UK Style, and the shoot was by Inez & Vinoodh. I like him as a cowboy, honestly. You’d think that he’s too… modern, I guess, too much of a fancy man, a dandy, to pull off the cowboy thing. But he makes it work, and now I really, really want to see him in cowboy boots and a cowboy hat. I bet he would be sexy as hell. Oh… yeah. Unlike those Gerard Butler-Ralph Fiennes photos from earlier, these photos are doing it for me.

Since we don’t have excerpts from the interview or anything, I’m guessing that RDJ is just beginning his promotional rounds for Sherlock Holmes 2: Game of Shadows. When I went to see The Debt, the were already showing the trailer for the film. I can’t wait! You know that Noomi Rapace is in it, right? She was the original Lisbeth Salander, and probably the best. I’m not going to get all judgy about Rooney Mara yet, but I just saw some photos of Mara, and… ugh. Team Noomi.

Also: remember, RDJ and Susan are expecting their first child together! I’m so happy for them. I bet she got pregnant as soon as RDJ came home in this cowboy outfit.

Photos courtesy of The Fashion Spot.