Robert Downey Jr. won big at the 2024 Critics Choice Awards, but he pointed out that film critics haven’t always been on his side.
Downey Jr., 58, accepted the award for Best Supporting Actor on Sunday, January 14, for his role as Lewis Strauss in Oppenheimer. After giving a shout-out to his fellow nominees, he shared some of the Critics Choice Association’s less flattering reviews of his work over the years.
“I was thinking this morning: I love critics,” he began. “They’ve given me such beautiful feedback, really just so many great moments, and some of it is so poetic, I just want to share some of their thoughts with you over the years.”
As the cameras panned to the audience during his speech, Bradley Cooper, Sandra Oh and more A-list stars were shown applauding and laughing. Even Robert De Niro looked amused as Downey Jr. continued.
“The first one is kind of like haiku: ‘Sloppy, messy, and lazy.’ The next one is more metaphoric: ‘Like Pee-wee Herman emerging from a coma,’” the Iron Man star read off a card in his hand. “This was from a Brit: ‘A puzzling waste of talent.’ And lastly, and this one lingered: ‘Amusing as a bed-locked fart.’”
Downey Jr. was nominated alongside De Niro, 80, Ryan Gosling, Charles Melton, Mark Ruffalo and Sterling K. Brown, who was also shown laughing along.
Downey Jr. took a somewhat more serious tone to his speech when thanking his “Oppenhomies,” whom he worked with on Oppenheimer.
“Every day of filming was like having my ego’s ass handed to me at the door and it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy,” he added, thanking the “holy trinity” of director Christopher Nolan, costar Cillian Murphy and producer Emma Thomas. He also offered a shout-out to cast members Emily Blunt and Alden Ehrenreich.
Downey Jr. concluded his speech by calling out the sources of his “24-hour running commentary” — otherwise known as his wife, Susan Downey, and his publicist. “I hope they think I did better this time. I’ll hear about it in a f—king second,” he concluded, seemingly referring to his recent Golden Globes speech.
Downey Jr. took home another trophy for his Oppenheimer role at the Globes earlier this month.
“I took a beta blocker, so this is going to be a breeze,” he joked at the time, reading from a paper that he pulled out of his pocket. Along with thanking his wife and fellow castmates at the time, Downey Jr. referred to the award as a “most improved player thing,” seemingly joking about his ups and downs in Hollywood over the years.
While his career has had a recent resurgence, the actor struggled with addiction in his early Hollywood days. He has been drug-free since 2003.
“Job one is get out of that cave. A lot of people do get out but don’t change,” he said, in part, during an interview with Vanity Fair from September 2014. “So the thing is to get out and recognize the significance of that aggressive denial of your fate, come through the crucible forged into a stronger metal. Or whatever.”
