THE ANGELS –
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Three decades after receiving his first nomination, Robert Downey Jr. has won his first Oscar.
Downey won best supporting actor on Sunday for the role of Rear Admiral Lewis Strauss in “Oppenheimer,” which has been hailed as one of Downey’s best performances in years.
It was the third Oscar nomination for a veteran actor known as one of Hollywood’s most versatile performers, but who until Sunday had never won an Oscar. He was nominated in 1993 for best actor for “Chaplin” and in 2008 as best supporting actor for “Tropic Thunder.”
Downey gave a lighthearted speech while accepting the Oscar.
“I would like to thank my terrible childhood,” he commented, paused for the audience to laugh, and continued: “and the academy, in that order.”
He also thanked his wife Susan. “He loved me and brought me back to life and that’s why I’m here.”
“Oppenheimer,” Christopher Nolan’s three-hour dive into the development and aftermath of the atomic bomb during World War II, led the Oscars with 13 nominations.
Downey beat Sterling K. Brown from “American Fiction,” Ryan Gosling from “Barbie,” Mark Ruffalo from “Poor Things” and Robert De Niro from “Killers of the Flower.” Moon” (“The Moon Killers”).
This win cements Downey’s front-runner status this awards season. He also took home the top award for supporting actor at the Golden Globes, the British Academy Film Awards’ BAFTAs, the Screen Actors Guild Awards (SAG), and the Critics Choice Awards.
“Because I? Because right now? Why are things going well for me?,” she said when she accepted her award at the SAGs.
Downey has openly spoken about his past struggles with drug addiction. In the 2022 documentary “Mr.”, which pays tribute to his filmmaker father, he revealed that he was addicted to drugs at age 8.
A series of arrests on drug charges and a year in prison followed Downey’s first Oscar nomination 30 years ago, when he was 28 years old.
The actor recently said he’s grateful he didn’t win in 1993.
“I was young and crazy,” he commented on the television show “The View.” “I would have been under the impression that he was on the right track.”
2024-03-11 02:21:49
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