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Robert Downey Jr’s decades-long career was capped with an Academy Award over the weekend, as the beloved actor took home the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer.
During his acceptance speech, Downey Jr. — famously one of the highest-paid actors in the world during the 2010s — said that his “little secret” is that he needed Oppenheimer more than it needed him.
“Here’s my little secret: I needed this job more than it needed me,” Downey Jr. said. “Chris [Nolan] knew it, Emma [Thomas] made sure she surrounded me with one of the greatest cast and crews of all time; Emily Blunt, Cillian Murphy, Matt Damon.. It was fantastic and I stand here before you a better man because of it. What we do is meaningful, and the stuff we decide to make is important.”
Downey Jr’s comments during his Academy Awards acceptance speech echoed a statement he made while giving a speech at the BAFTAs, when he said that Christopher Nolan suggested he take an “understated approach” in a “last-ditch effort to resurrect my dwindling credibility.”
“Recently, that dude Chris Nolan suggested I attempt an understated approach as a last-ditch effort to perhaps resurrect my dwindling credibility. So I share this with my fellow nominees, this has been an exceptional year,” Downey quipped.
This pair of comments from RDJ suggest he actually believed his career was on the verge of irrelevance, and if you look at his filmography, it’s not hard to see way.
Other than the disastrous 2020 film Dolittle, Downey Jr. hadn’t starred in a non-Marvel Cinematic Universe film since 2014, when he featured in Chef and The Judge.
Between 2014 and 2023, prior to the release of Oppenheimer, Downey Jr. only starred in the following MCU films: Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame, which is currently the second-highest grossing movie of all time behind James Cameron’s Avatar.
Next up for Downey Jr. will be the HBO series The Sympathizer, which premieres on April 14.