Dear Hollywood: STOP TRYING TO KILL ROBERT DOWNEY JR.!

Downey has noted that his recreational drug use in the 1980s did not spiral into a full-blown debilitating addiction until he played an addict in Less Than Zero. As the star recently told Starpulse, “Until that movie I took my drugs after work and on the weekends. That changed on Less Than Zero. The role was like the ghost of Christmas Future. I became an exaggeration of the character.” Downey’s subsequent addiction resulted in arrests, incarceration, and the near-demise of his acting career. Nobody wants anything like that to happen again, right?

And yet Downey’s next roles included injured on a ton of painkillers in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Substance D abuser in A Scanner Darkly, drug and alcohol abuser in Zodiac, alcoholic in Charlie Bartlett, and finally alcoholic again in Iron Man.

Seriously, guys: Please cut it out. Downey is a terrific actor and seems to be a nice guy. Find him a role as a yoga instructor or the owner of a health food store. Let him play a vegan FBI agent or a Seventh Day Adventist shock jock. Make him Captain Frickin’ America. But this has got to stop.

(If only here was not so good at these roles, you know?)