Having conquered playing a black man inTropic of Thunder, Robert Downey, Jr. is now starring in The Soloist as Los Angeles Times journalist Steve Lopez who wrote a successful column about a homeless violinist named Nathaniel Anthony Ayer in 2005. Lopez, who currently has 29 friends on MySpace (one of whom is Downey), is most likely about to get a few more friend requests thanks to the film which, by the looks of the trailer after the jump, is pretty good. The part of Ayer is played by Jamie Fox and seems to tick all the boxes on the list of things that earn actors one of those little statues. Oh and did we mention there’s a book, too?