LOS ANGELES – American actor Robert Downey Jr won his first Academy Award on March 10; a best supporting actor statue for his villainous turn in blockbuster period drama Oppenheimer.
Downey bested a stacked field that included two-time Oscar winner Robert De Niro (Killers of the Flower Moon), fan favourite Ryan Gosling (Barbie), Mark Ruffalo (Poor Things) and Sterling K. Brown (American Fiction).
The 58-year-old Downey played Lewis Strauss, the former chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission who mounted a behind-the-scenes campaign to strip scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer of his security clearance by tarring him as a communist.
Strauss’s efforts were later exposed during a congressional hearing as he sought confirmation to serve as President Dwight Eisenhower’s commerce secretary.
The actor thanked his “terrible childhood and the Academy – in that order” and his wife Susan, who he said “found me a snarling rescue pet” and “loved me back to life.”
He also acknowledged the cast and crew of Oppenheimer: “What we do is meaningful. What we decide to do is important,” he said.
Critics praised Downey for playing against his conventional type. Though he has played junkies, hustlers and fast-talkers, Downey is perhaps best known for his multiple film appearances as Marvel superhero Iron Man.
Downey was considered a frontrunner for the best supporting actor Oscar, having collected Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild trophies for his co-starring role.
The actor earned his first Oscar nomination for playing Charlie Chaplin in the 1992 biopic Chaplin. After battles with scandal and addiction, he earned a second supporting-actor nomination for his role in the war satire Tropic Thunder (2008).
Downey, one of the highest-grossing actors in the industry, solidified his A-lister status as the beating heart of the Marvel cinematic universe in Iron Man (2008), playing genius inventor/businessman Tony Stark and his superhero alter ego.
His appearances in 10 Marvel films – culminating in Iron Man’s heroic demise in 2019‘s Avengers: Endgame – has helped fuel the multi-billion-dollar franchise for a generation.
Earlier in the evening, sci-fi comedy Poor Things, from Walt Disney Co.’s Searchlight Pictures division, picked up three awards in a row on Sunday night at the 96th annual ceremony in Los Angeles.
The twist on the Frankenstein story starring actors Emma Stone and Willem Dafoe took home trophies for production design, costumes and makeup.
Other trophies were given out to Amazon’s American Fiction for best adapted screenplay and the French film Anatomy Of A Fall for best original screenplay. AFP, REUTERS, BLOOMBERG
