Oliver Stone blames Robert Downey Jr for ruining 'Natural Born Killers' with 'slapstick bulls**t'

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: William Oliver Stone has blamed actor Robert Downey Jr for “ruining” his 1994 film 'Natural Born Killers' with an improvised “slapstick bulls**t” scene.​

The Oscar-winning filmmaker revisited the film, 30 years after its release, during a recent oral history by Esquire.

He discussed an improvised scene where Robert Downey Jr's character dips the front tails of his white shirt in fake blood and pulls it through his pants zipper to create the appearance of a bloody penis, per The Hollywood Reporter.

Oliver Stone blames RDJ for 'ruining' 'Natural Born Killers'

During the interview, Oliver Stone recalled shouting at Downey Jr., saying, "Oh come on—that’s too much! You’re going too far, Robert. You’re ruining my movie! Forget the dumb d**k idea. … This isn’t some slapstick bulls**t."

However, he later told the actor, "Wait, wait—wait a second. Let me see the d*** thing again. Pull it back a half inch. All right. Let’s go."

Notably, the filming of 'Natural Born Killers' took place at a time when Downey was struggling with addiction. He told Esquire, "The only time I was awake… was between Action and Cut."

He added, "Everything on the schedule got moved up, and suddenly I needed to be there in two hours. To this day, it was one of the most mortifying notifications I’ve ever received."

"Because it was a seven-page scene. I got to set and I was absolutely useless. I was then given a therapeutic injection of ‘B12 vitamins’ — I’m just going to put that in quotes, italics, underlined, and question marks on either side. And I have never in my life experienced a more delightful nine hours," he further stated.

"We were all young enough that our resilience factor was cubed compared to if we had been middle-aged guys," he said.

Oliver Stone says Woody Harrelson 'was the most sane' while filming

Oliver Stone added that during filming, the production "was a zoo in the sense that the actors were all on different kinds of trips. I think Woody was the most sane."

Woody Harrelson remarked, "I will say this, and Oliver reassured me of this: I don’t want to say I was the moral center in this movie, but I was the one doing the least amount of drugs! Which is—it’s never happened in my career or my life. And no one’s ever done more drugs than me, but I was Mother Teresa on this one." 

Downey Jr said of Stone, "Oliver Stone is a director who, barring Nolan and maybe a few others, is the highest embodiment of social commentary via cinema. Oliver Stone has never made a movie that wasn’t saying something. Never."