Before he was Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr. was one of his generation’s most critically acclaimed actors, lauded for intense performances in movies like Less than Zero (1987) and Natural Born Killers (1994). Despite that, he has not yet won an Academy Award, and he is, in fact, grateful for that.
Robert Downey Jr. is currently nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the Christopher Nolan film Oppenheimer (2023), in which he portrayed real-life Rear Admiral Lewis Strauss. It is his third Oscar nomination (and second in that category), following the action comedy Tropic Thunder (2009) and the biopic Chaplin (1992).
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In a recent appearance on The View, Robert Downey Jr. revealed that he was actually glad that he did not win the Best Actor Oscar for Chaplin because he felt his chaotic personal life at the time would have gotten even worse. He said it was a relief that he did not win “[b]ecause I was young and crazy, and it would’ve put me under the impression that I was on the right track.”
The Marvel Cinematic Universe star continued, joking with his former co-star Whoopi Goldberg about their shared past, and saying that he had had “30 years of dependency, depravity and despair.” Basically, if he had experienced further reinforcement of his talent and success with an Oscar, he would have sunk even further.
The actor played legendary film star Charlie Chaplin in the latter film to enormous acclaim but lost to Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman (1992); at the time, the award was controversial, as many felt Pacino was essentially being given a lifetime achievement award at the expense of Denzel Washington in Malcolm X (1992).
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While Robert Downey Jr. is receiving massive praise for Oppenheimer (and is a frontrunner for the Academy Award), most audiences will now permanently associate him with Tony Stark, the central figure of the MCU. Downey Jr. has described his work with Marvel as some of the best of his career, but that it’s not the kind of role that usually gets an Oscar.
Even if that’s the case, it’s likely that he will finally get an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor very soon. Hopefully, he’ll be glad about it this time.
Do you think Robert Downey Jr. deserves an Oscar, and for which role? Let us know in the comments below!