Before They Were Stars: 15-Year Old Robert Downey, Jr. as an Extra in “Up the Academy”

Robert Downey, Jr. spent his childhood making a brief appearances in films which were directed by his father, Robert Downey, Sr.. In 1980, the senior Downey directed a comedy called Up the Academy, an Animal House knockoff financed by Mad Magazine. However, Up the Academy turned out to be so bad that Mad disowned it and its publisher actually issued personal handwritten apologies to anyone who wrote in to the magazine to complain about the film. Anyway, a 15-year old Robert Downey, Jr. was an extra during a soccer sequence in this film and you can see him in this scene as the kid with the dark hair and yellow shirt standing in the middle of the group.