Robert Downey Jr. Compares Time in Prison to Living in a 'Really Bad Neighborhood': 'Everyone Is Going to Take Your Wallet'

Robert Downey Jr. doesn't have fond memories from his time behind bars.

The Iron Man actor, who served one year of a three-year sentence in the '90s after repeatedly violating the terms of his probation, described prison as similar to living in a "really bad neighborhood."

"I'm gonna try to give you the flashcards: I'm in court, I'm being over-sentenced by an angry judge, and at some point he said something in Latin," Downey Jr. told the host of the "Armchair Expert" podcast. "I thought he was casting a spell on me."

"Two weeks later, I'm in a place called Delano, which is a receiving center where they decide where you're going to go," he continued, calling it one of the most "dangerous" places he'd ever been to in his life because "nobody is designated" by their criminal charges.

"If they're a level 1, 2, 3 or 4 criminal, [everyone's there]," he added. "You could just feel the evil in the air."

Remembering the first moment he'd walked into the prison yard knowing he was going to be "doing more than a year" there, he claimed it felt like he'd been "sent to a distant planet where there is no way home until the planets align."

"It was kind of like just being in a really bad neighborhood, and there was no opportunity there; there was only threats," he revealed. "So, yes, everyone is going to take your wallet, so watch it."

Although Downey Jr. had his ups and downs with substance abuse issues after finishing out his prison sentence, the Marvel actor's wife, film producer Susan Downey, 49, said that her husband decided to quit drugs for good in 2003 after she gave him an ultimatum regarding the future of their relationship.

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"I think he saw what we had," she explained to Harper's Bazaar at the time. "There was something magical there, something we couldn't put our finger on. He always says that we became this third thing when we got together — something that neither of us could have become by ourselves — and I think that's true."