Robert Downey Jr. received the award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role at the 2024 Oscars for his performance in Oppenheimer — and gave his wife, Susan Downey, most of the credit.
“I’d like to thank my terrible childhood and The Academy. In that order,” Robert, 58, began his acceptance speech during the Sunday, March 10, awards show.
He then turned his attention to his wife of nearly 20 years. “I’d like to thank my veterinarian, I mean my wife, Susan Downey,” the actor said. “She found me, a snarling rescue pet and you loved me back to life. That’s why I’m here.”
Robert also gushed about working on Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, saying, “Here’s my little secret. I needed this job more than it needed me. I stand here before you, a better man because of it.”
He continued: “What we do is meaningful, and the stuff that we decide to make is important.”
Robert then joked, “So, back to my publicist — my agent, Phillip Raskin is here and Andrew Dunlap, my den mother Joy Feeley, thank you.”
He added, “I want to thank my stylist, in case no one else does. Thanks, Erika, thank you very much. And I’m just going to say this. My entertainment lawyer Tom Hanson, for 40 years, the half of which he spent trying to get me insured and bailing me out, thanks, bro.”
The first time winner concluded by giving his kids a shout-out. “Avri, Exton, Indio, this one’s for you,” Robert said.
The category was rounded out by American Fiction’s Sterling K. Brown, Killers of the Flower Moon’s Robert De Niro, Barbie’s Ryan Gosling and Poor Things’ Mark Ruffalo.
Brown, 47, was a first-time Academy Award nominee at the ceremony, while Robert, Gosling, 43, and Ruffalo, 56, each had multiple previous nods heading into the event.
Robert was previously up for Best Actor in a Leading Role for Chaplin in 1993 and Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Tropic Thunder in 2009, while Gosling received nominations for Best Actor in a Leading Role for Half Nelson in 2007 and La La Land in 2017. Ruffalo earned three past nods for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for The Kids Are All Right in 2011, Foxcatcher in 2015 and Spotlight in 2016.
De Niro, 80, was already a two-time Oscar winner before the awards show. In 1975, he received his first Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for The Godfather Part II, and in 1981, he was honored with Best Actor in a Leading Role for Raging Bull. De Niro has a total of nine career nominations, including for his performances in 1976’s Taxi Driver, 1978’s The Deer Hunter, 1990’s Awakenings, 1991’s Cape Fear and 2012’s Silver Linings Playbook. He was also up for Best Picture in 2020 for his work as a producer on The Irishman.
Ahead of the Academy Awards, Robert secured wins for Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role in Any Motion Picture at the 2024 Golden Globe Awards in January, beating out De Niro, Gosling, Ruffalo, May December’s Charles Melton and Poor Things’ Willem Dafoe, and for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role at the 2024 Screen Actors Guild Awards in February, defeating Brown, Dafoe, De Niro and Gosling.
During his Golden Globes acceptance speech, Robert described his victory as “a most-improved-player thing” and credited his agents with telling him he “needed to restart [his] career.” At the SAG Awards, he thanked some of the “super talented” costars he “learned so much from up close” throughout his career before expressing his gratitude to wife Susan for “flawlessly [portraying] a sane and rational individual who is happily married to an actor.”
