Robert Downey Jr. has become one of the most powerful players in Hollywood. But the 48-year-old actor admits he's not much of a networker. "I think about people, and I have a conversation with them in my head," he says. "But I tend to not reach out." In an interview about his career and the future of the movie industry, the Iron Man and Sherlock Holmes actor tells Fortune about the real-life discussions (Elon Musk!) that have influenced his thinking about technology, business, and entertainment. Edited portions of the interview will appear in the January 13 issue of Fortune; a lengthier excerpt of the Q&A follows.

    Q. This isn't the first time your image has been on the cover of a business magazine. Tony Stark's face has graced the cover of a few news titles.

    A. Yes! I wanted to close the circle.

    Elon Musk has been compared to Tony Stark, and parts of Iron Man 2 were filmed at a SpaceX facility. Did you ever meet?

    The genesis of that goes back to preproduction for Iron Man I, when SpaceX was in a smaller facility and Elon Musk was not a household name. As part of my research, I wanted to interview two people: John Underkoffler [the chief scientist at computer interface company Oblong] and Elon. I thought it was really interesting that he literally had decided to become a rocket scientist. And although the similarities kind of end with a certain -- what would you say? -- just an amazing self-agency, you know, that I think Elon really embodies. I was looking to Under¬koffler for straight technology [advice]. You remember in Minor¬ity Report, the character is wearing those gloves and moving the screens around? He and his company built that into a reality, so I was taking some cues from him: If Tony had designed his own software and his own programs and the machinery to operate them, what sort of language would he design to be able to ma¬nipulate his environment? And over the course of all these mov¬ies, that's been as much a part of Tony's character as anything else.

    The spirit of Elon was really inspiring to me because Tony goes from doing one thing so well and so successfully, and goes to do something that's a lot more risky and much more far reaching.

    And then in the second Iron Man, Tony Stark has a conversation with Elon Musk about doing a project together. I think it's electric jets if I'm not mistaken.

    Were there any other business leaders or powerful people who inspired your performance?

    There's a little bit of Howard Hughes in there. But in this character, in this potential franchise, I saw a huge business op¬portunity for myself. What was required of me was to put myself forward in a different light than I had been previously imagined, and to imagine being perceived as a bit more dashing, a bit more masculine. Essentially you aspire to a persona that puts you into a different light, which you can equate to more opportunity.

    小罗伯特•唐尼现在已是好莱坞最有影响力的明星之一，不过这位现年48岁的演员却坦承自己并不是个善于交际的人。他说：“我会想人际的事，我在脑袋里跟他们说话，但我往往不会主动去认识别人。”《财富》杂志（Fortune ）日前专访了这位钢铁侠和福尔摩斯的扮演者，请他谈谈自己的事业以及电影行业的未来，采访中他谈到了埃隆•穆斯克是怎样影响了他对科技、商业和娱乐的看法。经过编辑的采访文稿将刊登在1月13日的《财富》杂志上，以下是比较长的一段采访节选：

    问：你的照片出现在一本商业杂志封面上，这已经不是第一次了，《钢铁侠》主人公托尼•斯塔克的脸已经上过不少头版了。

    答：对！我想有个完满的结束。

    问：经常有人把埃隆•穆斯克与电影《钢铁侠》的主人公托尼•斯塔克相比，而且《钢铁侠II》的部分情节就是在穆斯克的太空探索技术公司（SpaceX）里拍摄的，你俩见过面吗？

    答：这还要追溯到《钢铁侠I》的准备拍摄阶段，当时SpaceX公司还在一幢更小的楼里，埃隆•穆斯克当时也还不像今天这样家喻户晓。我当时在为电影做功课。我很想访问两个人，一个是约翰•安德考夫勒（电脑界面公司Oblong的首席科学家），另一个就是埃隆•穆斯科。他真的决定成为一名火箭学家，我觉得这非常有意思。托尼•斯塔克和埃隆最像的地方就是一种惊人的自我能动性，它在埃隆身上表现得非常明显。我之所以想见安德考夫勒，是想从他那里获得一些纯技术上的建议。你还记得《少数派报告》（Minor¬ity Report）吧，影片里的人带着那种手套可以把屏幕移来移去的，安德考夫勒和他的公司把这种技术变成了现实，所以我想从他那获得些启发：如果托尼•斯塔克设计了他自己的软件和程序以及运行机制，那他会设计一种什么样的语言来操纵他的环境？在这几部电影拍摄的过程中，不仅托尼的角色要求这些，其它环节也一样。

    而埃隆的精神对我很有启发，因为托尼•斯塔克也是把一件事做得很好、很成功，然后又去做另一件风险大得多、意义也重大得多的事。

    《钢铁侠》第二部中，埃隆•穆斯克还在电影中客串了一把，与托尼•斯塔克在电影里一起讨论了一个项目，如果没记错的话应该是电动飞机。

    还有其他商业领袖或成功人士给了你的表演以启发吗？

    霍华德•休斯对我也有一点影响。但当时从这个角色中，从这部片子里，我看到了自己的一个巨大的商机。我需要的是把我自己放到一个跟我以前想象的不一样的角度上，想象把我塑造成一个更有闯劲、更硬朗的人。实质上就是想要塑造一个不同的人物形象，它能给你带来更多的机会。

    Was that empowering for you?

    Sure. You know, grace is something that by my own power, by my own spirit of invention, by my own work or even luck, I couldn't attain. That to me is kind of at the heart of fortune.

    Because there are several kinds of fortune. There's the fortune that is predictable, and then there's the kind that people love to say is unprecedented. But every fortune, every big business, every big political or industrial or artistic move is unprecedented before it becomes the norm.

    So, you know, it's so interesting too. And I make a bit of a point of studying the kind of less-Western [view of] this sort of thing, and I always find that it's kind of about, you know, "the way is the way is the way."

    It's one thing to participate in something that is a hit; it's another to replicate it in another realm. I was super-fortunate in the people I was surrounded with. When [director] Jon Favreau and [Marvel Studios president] Kevin Feige launched Iron Man it was this brand-new thing that had just enough money to try to compete with what the other studios had been doing well for ages, and our skin was really in it, and if we failed, no one would be surprised. So we felt like college kids who think, Let's see if we can do this startup and make it fly. Pretty soon after that, I was lucky to work with my long-suffering wife [producer Susan Downey] and Guy Ritchie and Joel Silver in taking Sher¬lock Holmes and reinterpreting this original superhero, whose superpower is his brain, and that turned out very nicely too.

    So, once you've replicated something, the onus is to -- then you want to go back and you want to kind of reverse-engineer and say, "What is it that was in common with the processes on both of those projects?" And the funny and hilarious and humiliating thing is you know it when you're in it, but it's incredibly elusive.

    In 2004 you released an album titled The Futurist, What was the inspiration?

    I had some time on my hands, I wasn't working much in my, ahem, chosen profession. An aspect of fortune is that, when it's raining, then you gotta work inside the barn, you know?

    And there is always something I've noticed with every person I know to a man, to a woman, they are always multifaceted. And I find that a certain sort of dysthymic, existential depression sets in on each and every one of us when we might not be doing what we wish, but we're not doing what we can. Because there's kind of a typically Western affixing to, you know, this is what I want, and this is what I should do, but oftentimes working on any part of yourself constructively is for the highest good and will help you ultimately achieve those other goals.

    I wrote a lyric "a futurist knows" -- like, a futurist knows what's coming for us. Except I said, "a futurist nose," like the nose on your face. It is that kind of intuitive part of us that, when we're relaxed, we can predict a felt sense of where our lives are going.

    The funny thing was around about the time of writing that song and then going into a year or two later prepping for the first Iron Man, I found myself really drawn to those thoughts and those ideas.

    它对你产生帮助了吗？

    当然。要知道，魅力这种东西，光靠我的能力、靠我自己的创造精神、靠我自己的努力甚至运气，是无法得到的。可以说它是我最宝贵的财富。因为财富也有分几种。有的财富是可以预见的，也有些财富或运气人们常说是史无前例的。但是每一笔财富，每一笔大买卖，每个重大的政治、工业和艺术上的行动，在成为常态之前都是史无前例的。

    所以这也很有意思。我通过不那么西方的眼光研究这种事也得出了一些心得，我发现事情经常就是“船到桥头自然直” 。

    要想参与某个成功的事情是一回事，但是要把它复制到另一个领域又是另一回事。在我周围的人里，我可以说是超级幸运的。当初导演乔恩•法夫罗和漫威影业（Marvel Studios）的总裁凯文•菲格刚刚推出《钢铁侠》的时候，这类片子对他们来说还是一个全新的领域，他们刚刚有足够的钱与其他已经做了几十年这类片子的制片公司进行竞争。如果我们失败了，没人会觉得意外。所以当时我们的心态就像刚刚搞创业的大学生一样，心里想着“我们一起来看看，能不能做起这家公司，把它搞红火。”拍完那部片子之后，很快我幸运地和一直跟我受苦的妻子（制片人苏珊•唐尼）以及盖•里奇、乔•西佛等人合作，拍了《大侦探福尔摩斯》（Sher¬lock Holmes），重新演绎了这位老牌超级英雄。他的超能力就是他的大脑，而且这部片子的反响也非常不错。

    一个人复制某些东西的时候，就想搞一种逆项工程。你会想，“这两个项目的过程之间有什么共同点？”但是有意思、甚至搞笑的是，当你这做的时候，这是非常难搞懂的。

    2004年你推出了一张名叫《未来主义者》（ The Futurist）的专辑，它的灵感是什么？

    当时我手里有点时间，在我选择的事业上没有投入太多工作。既然下雨了，就只好歇工干别的，对吧？我注意到不论是男人还是女人，人都是有多面性的。而且我发现，当我们每个人所做的事与我们期望做的事不一样，我们心里都会产生某种抑郁，某种存在感上的低落。但是西方人的看法往往会给自己打上一个标签，认为这就是我想要的，那就是我应该做的，但是往往在某方面积极提高自己就是善莫大焉，而且最终会有助于你实现那些其它的目标。

    我写下了“未来主义者知道”这句歌词，意思就是未来主义者知道我们未来会迎来什么。只不过我把它写成了“未来主义者闻到”，也就是用鼻子闻。这是我们的一种直觉，也就是当我们放松的时候，我们可以有种预感，预感到我们的生活会往哪个方向发展。

    有意思的是，就在写那首歌那阵子，以及在准备《钢铁侠I》那几年，我发现自己真的沉浸在这些思想和想法里。

    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.

    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。

    You've worked in film as an actor for almost three decades, and now you're producing movies. How has the industry changed, and where is it going?

    It's changed for me in that I feel I'm part of the furniture, and the thing about being someone no longer on the outside looking in is that all those projections become kind of null and void.

    I always love listening to what people are complaining about. You know, "Oh, it's just driven by these big tent-pole pictures and blah, blah, blah." But there are a lot that flies in the face of that. And I think these last few years have been very interesting in that some of the kind of middle- to smaller-budget films have really gotten a heck of a lot of attention.

    The prime mover usually is an individual who takes the influence they have and applies it in a different direction. I think Matthew McConaughey is a great example of that this year, you know? I think in moving projects like Mud and Dallas Buyers Club into a position where they might not have had kind of opportunities and visibility, they did if not for him, you know?

    I don't know that anyone can accurately say where any industry is going at any time. If you'd said 10 years ago that Matthew Mc¬Conaughey would be the most interesting actor of 2013 or that someone like me would be at the top of the heap for box-office genre movies -- I think neither he nor I would have believed it.

    Back to Elon Musk. Are you an investor in Tesla (TSLA)?

    The funny thing is, I didn't really have the money to invest at the point at which I would have gotten in on the ground floor But you know, the truth be told is for someone who's as kind of let's call it daring on occasion for lack of a better word as I am in other aspects of my life, I'm extremely conservative with my investments.

    你作为演员在电影行业已经工作近30年了，现在又自己做电影。这个行业发生了哪些变化？未来它又会往何处去？

    我觉得行业在改变，因为我自己也是行业的一分子。作为一个不再是局外人的人看来，就是所有那些预测可以说都是徒劳的。

    我一直喜欢听别人的抱怨，比如有人说“哦，它票房高只是因为海报设计得漂亮”什么的，但是很多事完全不是这样。我觉得过去几年很有意思的是，有些中小预算的电影的确吸引了大量的关注。

    这种变化的原动力往往是某个人利用已有的影响力，然后把它用到另一个不同的方向上。比如我觉得马修•麦康纳今年就是一个很好的例子。《密西西比河上的玛德》（Mud）和《达拉斯买家俱乐部》（Dallas Buyers Club）等片子能有今天这样的地位，如果不是因为马修•麦康纳的缘故，可能就不会有那样的机会和知名度。

    我认为，无论什么时候，谁都没法确切地说，一个行业会走向何方。如果你在十年前说马修•麦康纳会成为2013年最有意思的演员，或者说像我这样的人会站到票房大片的榜首——我相信无论是他，还是我自己，都不会相信。

    话题再回到埃隆•穆斯克。你是特斯拉公司的投资人之一吗？

    有意思的是，当时我有投资的机会，但却没有足够的钱去投资。但是事实上，我这个人在生活的其它方面有时可以说挺大胆的，但是我在投资方面还是极为保守。（财富中文网）

    译者：朴成奎