Two Hollywood ‘bad boys' on their best behaviour, the plight of widows in India, and the story of a world-famous nude nightclub in London grabbed centre stage at the Toronto Film Festival on Friday.

Robert Downey Jr. and co-star Val Kilmer hit the festival talk circuit to promote their comedy thriller Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, which features Downey as a petty thief and Kilmer as a gay detective who solve a grisly murder.

The film is the first on-screen pairing of the two, whose reputations as talented actors have been overshadowed by real-life dramas. Downey has fought drug addiction, while Kilmer has had to combat a reputation for being hell to work with -- a problem he now sunnily maintains he has left behind.

Both declared they worked cheap to do the low budget film and had a ball doing it. Downey even maintained that the movie's script parallels his own life.

"I escaped New York, came to Los Angeles, almost got killed and felt pretty happy at the end, just like the movie," he told a news conference.

In 1999, Downey served a year in prison for cocaine possession and was arrested twice for the same offence within months of his release. He has since become "clean and sober" and has regained his reputation as one of Hollywood's most inventive actors.

When the film's director, Shane Black, asked rhetorically why the two had never been cast together before, both actors laughed when a reporter quipped: "Insurance."

Meanwhile Indian-born Canadian director Deepa Mehta basked in a cavalcade of praise for her film Water, which tells of a young Indian widow forced by religious strictures to live a life of chastity and austerity.

Wateropened the festival on Thursday and received a standing ovation. The emotionally charged film was snapped up quickly for sale overseas amid predictions it could be a world-wide hit.

Mehta, who first tried to make the film in India in 2000 but was forced to cease production by rioting Hindu fundamentalists, said she would be disappointed if the movie was not shown in India.

"It is set in India. It is about India. It should be shown in India," she said.

Meanwhile, British director Stephen Frears' latest film Mrs. Henderson Presents, received warm applause when it was shown to the press. It stars Dame Judi Dench as a 1930s widow who buys an abandoned theatre -- The Windmill -- and launches Britain's most famous nude revue.

Bob Hoskins stars as the theatre's manager, who spends much of the film verbally duelling with the eccentric and saucy Mrs. Henderson. "You just wind her up and set her off," Hoskins said of working with Dench.

The film begins as a drawing-room comedy, but takes on a more serious tone mid-way as the outbreak of World War II turns the theatre into a refuge for blitz-weary Londoners looking for a distraction from the carnage around them.

Hoskins, who also was executive producer of the film, said he visited The Windmill several times as a child growing up in London.

"After the war it was still fabulous. It became a sort of family show. It was really innocent, people used to take their kids," said Hoskins, who himself strips down to the buff at one point in the film.

Frears added, "It was very very English. It was like a sort licensed national dirty joke."