While the majority of celebrities prefer to keep the ins and outs of their sex life personal, Robert Downey Jr is owning his X-rated antics.

The acting mega-star admitted that during one stage of his illustrious on-screen career, he became rather dependant on the physical act of self-gratification.

The startling sexual revelation comes just months after the Ironman star was dubbed the most ‘unpredictably brilliant’ actor that his Oppenheimer co-star Cillian Murphy ever worked with.

The Peaky Blinders frontman told GQ following the historical blockbuster’s release that although they didn’t get the chance to hang up together much on set, he was always left blown away by RDJ‘s performances.

“A lot of the scenes I have with Downey, it was quite loose and quite improvisational,” Murphy gushed.

“I mean, acting with him was just extraordinary. He’s just electrifying, the most available engaged, present, unpredictably brilliant actor I’ve ever worked with.

Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images

Downey Jr had just as much praise for his on-screen counterpart, saying: “I have never witnessed a greater sacrifice by a lead actor in my career.

“He knew it was going to be a behemoth ask when Chris called him.”

RDJ went on to tell People: “But I think he also had the humility that is required to survive playing a role like this.

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“We’d be like, ‘Hey, we got a three-day weekend. Maybe we’ll go antiquing in Santa Fe. What are you going to do?’ ‘Oh, I have to learn 30,000 words of Dutch. Have a nice time’. But that’s the nature of the ask.”

Aww. We love a bromance.

Getty/Taylor Hill

Anyway, going back to why you’re all reading this article: Downey Jr’s masturbation routine…

Speaking to the Sunday Times back in 2008, the Marvel legend confessed that he was quite ‘compulsive, serial masturbator’ back in the day.

“But it was the best thing I could have been,” he said. “I utilised that organ and rode it for everything it was worth.”

The eyebrow-raising admission came just three years after Downey Jr tied the knot with his wife Susan, with whom he has since welcomed daughter Avri and son Exton.

Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images

Despite being happily married to his wife for almost two decades, Downey Jr has received several bad reviews from his co-stars for his smooching skills.

Speaking to People in 2010, he revealed that his Marvel co-star Gwyneth Paltrow was less than impressed with their on-screen kiss.

“She said I didn’t know what I was doing, like, ‘It didn’t feel good’,” he told the publication.

Well, you can’t win them all, Robbie!

It goes without saying that Robert De Niro is one of the greatest actors of his generation, but his commitment to one particular role helps set him apart even further.

The 79-year-old actor is well-known for putting in the extra effort to ensure his performances are spot-on; the star worked as a cabbie for several months to prepare for his role in Taxi Driver and gained 60lbs (27kg) to play heavyweight champ Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull.

But when he was cast as Max Cady in 1991’s Cape Fear, De Niro went further again.

For those unfamiliar with the film, it centres on convicted rapist Cady (played by De Niro), who is released from prison and hatches a plot to track down and exact revenge from public defender Sam Bowden (played by Nick Nolte) whom he blamed for sending him to prison.

To get into character, De Niro opted to undergo costly – and painful sounding – unnecessary dental work to look the part. Ouch.

De Niro forked out $5,000 (around £4,080 at today’s conversion rate) to have his teeth filed down so he’d look more sinister in the flick and it worked.

Photo 12 / Alamy Stock Photo

De Niro went through a complete transformation for the role, alongside his teeth being filed, he worked out to give Cady a prison-gym-honed physique and covered his body in fake tattoos.

Of course, De Niro didn’t want to be stuck with the teeth he’d had designed for Cady, so once the movie wrapped, he had to splash out another $20,000 to have them fixed. Rather you than me, pal.

For what it’s worth, the movie went on to become a box office smash and De Niro earned himself a best actor nomination at the Oscars – so arguably the effort and expense was all worth it.

​​Moviestore Collection Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo

De Niro’s commitment to a character doesn’t end with what he’s willing to put his body through, either.

When filming The Deer Hunter, released in 1978, De Niro insisted on using a real bullet during the tense Russian roulette scene.

According to Michael Cimino – director of the Oscar winning film – De Niro requested a live cartridge and, somewhat surprisingly, co-star John Cazale agreed ‘without protest’.

However Cazale is said to have ‘obsessively’ checked and rechecked the gun before each and every take to make sure that the live round was not next in the chamber. I mean, I can’t say I blame him there.

Iron Man may always be the role Robert Downey Jr is best known for, but no one will ever let him forget when he did blackface in Tropic Thunder.

For the 2008 Ben Stiller comedy, Downey Jr played Kirk Lazarus, an Aussie method actor and Academy Award winner who undergoes ‘pigmentation alteration’ surgery to get into character for a new role, and refuses to break character, no matter how dire their situation gets.

That means that Downey Jr was in blackface for the vast majority of the film.

Even though the role was intended to poke fun at intense method actors and celebrities who think they can do whatever they want for their ‘craft’, the blackface move didn’t exactly age well.

And although Downey Jr completely gets why people wouldn’t be thrilled with him, he stands by the decision.

Speaking to Joe Rogan back in 2020, Robert recalled: “When Ben [Stiller] called and said, ‘Hey, I’m doing this thing’ – I think Sean Penn had passed on it, or something – I thought, ‘Yeah, I’ll do that after Iron Man!’

“And then I started thinking, ‘This is a terrible idea, wait a minute.’

“And I then I thought, ‘Hold on, dude. Get real here. Where is your heart?’

“And my heart is, A, I get to be black for a summer in my mind, so there’s something in it for me. The other thing is, I get to hold up to nature the insane self involved hypocrisy of artists and what they think they’re allowed to do.”

Dreamworks

He noted that it also helped that Ben was such a ‘masterful’ filmmaker and had a clear vision for the film.

“Ben, who is a masterful artist and director, probably the closest thing to Charlie Chaplin that I’ve experienced in my lifetime, if you had seen him while he was directing this movie, you would have been like, ‘I’m watching David Lean, I’m watching Chaplin, I’m watching Coppola.’

“He knew exactly what the vision for this was. He executed it. It was impossible to not have it be an offensive nightmare of a movie.”

Downey Jr said that, when the film first came out, ’90 percent of [his] black friends were like, “Dude, that was great.”‘

When Joe Rogan asked him about the other 10 percent, the actor awkwardly replied: “Uh, you know, I can’t disagree with them, but I know where my heart was.”

Dreamworks

RDJ in blackface wasn’t the only thing that caused problems in that film: Ben Stiller’s character, Tugg Speedman’s portrayal of a mentally challenged farm boy in a controversial film called Simple Jack, didn’t go down too well either.

For better or for worse, it did take some of the heat off of Robert Downey Jr.

“The funny thing, too, was all the heat got deflected to Ben as Simple Jack. That’s what people were p***ed off about, and I go, ‘Phew! Great!'”