Robert Downey Jr. says meeting his wife for the first time was "as significant" as trying to impress a high school girl in his youth.
The Hollywood actor and film producer Susan Levin tied the knot in 2005 after meeting on the set of Gothika in 2003.
Robert has previously credited Susan with helping him kick his drug and alcohol addictions, and says she made a big impression on him from the very beginning.
"If I picked for you the ten worst moments of my life, they were probably the ten most defining moments of my life. Whether they're that complete rejection by a girl that doesn't even know you're crazy about her, and you are distracted riding your bike to school, and just as you look over at her, you take a complete ass-over flip into a shrub. And the girl just looks at you and keeps on walking with an expression that says, 'Who is that schmuck?'" he mused in the most recent edition of US Esquire magazine.
"And that's every bit as significant to me as the moment I met Susan, in a rehearsal space with Halle Berry in Montreal ten years ago, and thought, 'Wow, she's pretty damn cute for a boss.'"
Robert has battled drug and alcohol demons, but kicked his habit after meeting wife Susan. The 47-year-old star says his addiction was a waste of his life.
"A link between addiction and creativity? Horses**t. No, I never told myself that lie," he explained.
"I'm not saying that the correctly timed intervention here and there is blah blah blah look, it's valiant to go waste days, weeks, months, and years trying to fish someone you care about out of their own abyss. But if your intuition asks, Is this a big O.K. Corral ego trip on the part of the people who are going to say, 'All right, we're going to go in and handle this?' Because you're not. You're not going to handle s**t.
"No amount of effort is going to nudge somebody out of a situation that they deem is hopeless. And people sense when there's an ego trip involved, when there's a 'I'm here to save your life!' It's horses**t. It's horses**t. I hate it. That's recovery vulturism."