Stars Show Up in Force for Robert Downey Jr.’s Broadway Debut

It was the theatrical event of the fall at the Lincoln Center Theater last night as Robert Downey Jr. starred in his first Broadway production as Jacob McNeal, the lead role in McNeal, a new play by the Pulitzer-winning playwright Ayad Akhtar.

There were as many stars in the audience as there were on stage as Hollywood turned up to support Downey Jr., who plays an alcoholic author and whose own demons with alcohol have been well chronicled. The actor has been sober since 2003 and won an Oscar this year for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Lewis Strauss in Oppenheimer.

Celebrating his Broadway debut were many of the actors’ friends who had made the trip from Los Angeles.

“He was fantastic, said Jason Bateman, who was huddled with Paul Rudd, and his fellow Smartless podcast stars Will Arnett and Sean Hayes.

Joanna Coles

Justin Theroux, who wrote Tropic Thunder—for which Downey nabbed an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Kirk Lazarus—was in the audience to support him, as was the director Steven Spielberg, Kate Capshaw, Matt Damon, Oscar Isaac, and Blythe Danner, among many others.

“It’s a stunning piece of writing,” Downey Jr. said of the play, which follows the meltdown of an author who has just won the Nobel Prize for literature. “It’s been a wonderful time, full of healing and joy.”

Joanna Coles

Broadway veteran and star of The Office, Transparent and The Bold Type, Melora Hardin, who plays opposite him, said: “he’s a wonderful actor and a wonderful person and he knows how to play and how you find some deeper thing even outside the text.

“He’s generous and warm and he’s done a lot of work on himself and you can tell. He’s not running a ton of bullshit. He’s faced the darkness and he’s disciplined about maintaining a very healthy life.”