Robert Downey Jr. has had an interesting past, to say the least. Now, with a two and a half-year-old son and a daughter on the way, the superstar actor has had time to reflect on how his profile has changed.

“You have to survive the narrative, because the narrative has such a weight of its own,” he says. “It’s like being in a bad relationship - you just have to wait until they move out. You can’t move on until that asshole is gone.

“There are always unsavoury aspects to your personality. You have to re-examine that and make sure you’re not making something part of your own narrative that you don’t want. Ultimately, all I want to do is put my head down on the pillow at night and not be in a bad space with myself.”

Being in the Hollywood spotlight affects how you’re remembered, too, and our man is acutely aware of the legacy he wants to leave: “You know what I love about icons of Hollywood? You find out all this crap about them. ‘Oh, she was a bitch, oh he was gay, oh she was so cheap’. I’d like people to think about me like that one day. As a stingy, mean lesbian!”

Read the full interview with Robert Downey Jr. in the next issue of Hot Press, in shops tomorrow!