11 Mar – Just as predicted, Robert Downey Jr. emerged the winner of Best Supporting Actor at the 2024 Academy Awards. The "Oppenheimer" actor bested contenders Sterling K. Brown ("American Fiction"), Mark Ruffalo ("Poor Things"), Robert De Niro ("Killers of the Flower Moon") and Ryan Gosling ("Barbie") to win the coveted accolade, making it his first ever Oscar victory.
Thanking his "terrible childhood and the Academy in that order", as well as his wife Susan Downey and the Oppenheimer team, Downey added, "What we do is meaningful. What we decide to do is important."
Downey, who had been nominated twice at the Oscars prior to his win (for "Chaplin" and "Tropic Thunder"), was a shoo-in, having previously won at the Golden Globes and SAG Awards. In "Oppenheimer", the almost unrecognisable actor plays the role of Lewis Strauss, the former chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.