ROBERT DOWNEY JR - DOWNEY JR STILL SURPRISED BY ONE NIGHT STAND

ROBERT DOWNEY JR is still amazed movie-maker MIKE FIGGIS hired him to star in ONE NIGHT STAND - because when they met, the actor was high, shoeless and carrying a gun. The GOTHIKA star was close to the height of his drug addiction when he agreed to meet with Figgis and discuss the possibility of playing a dying AIDS sufferer in the 1997 film. He recalls, "I was in pretty bad shape and probably weighed about 140 pounds and was carrying a firearm and didn't have any shoes on. "I think I told him (Figgis) that my cousin was in the IRA (Irish Republican Army) and he was in town and, 'I didn't trust him and I got a kid now and if we gotta throw down on the street I want my rubber grip .357 with the dum-dum bullets.'" Downey Jr admits he's glad THE GRADUATE director did hire him because he found playing a dying man very cathartic. The actor explains, "It was someone whose own proclivities and own sexually promiscuity and own desire to eat life and live fast was the reason that he wasn't going to be there for his friend when he might have enjoyed him most."