You can’t have missed the fan campaign to get Robert Downey Jr. nominated for Best Actor at next year’s Academy Awards, based on his moving final (?) performance as Iron Man in Avengers: Endgame. Last week, Disney started their Oscar campaign for the movie, with the studio calling for it to get recognition in 12 categories but surprisingly, Best Actor wasn’t one of them. Did the Mouse House not have enough faith in their leading man? Or was there another reason for why they decided not to give him the push?
Well, as it turns out, it was actually Downey Jr.’s own decision to call off the campaign to get him an Oscar nom. While on The Howard Stern Show, conversation turned to Martin Scorsese’s controversial comments about Marvel movies and the general disconnect between so-called “real” cinema and blockbusters. As part of this, Stern asked the actor if he’d ever felt upset about not being nominated for an Oscar for his role as Tony Stark over the past 11 years.
RDJ used the opportunity to clarify that this isn’t something that gets him down and said that the reason Disney didn’t submit him for a nomination for Endgame is because he actually told them not to.
“I’m so glad you brought this up because there was some talk about it, and I said ‘let’s not’…”
Downey Jr. then moved on to another topic and so didn’t explain his reasoning for not wanting to go forward with an Oscar campaign, but clearly, he knows that getting a shiny gong for his troubles isn’t the be-all-and-end-all of acting. Though it’s not like he’s a stranger to the Academy Awards, either, as he’s previously received Oscar nominations for both 1993’s Chaplin and 2008’s Tropic Thunder.
We’ll have to wait and see whether Avengers: Endgame manages to snag anything in the “major” Oscar categories, which doesn’t seem out of the question given Black Panther‘s Best Picture nod this year. But in the meantime, tell us, do you think Downey Jr. made the right decision in not moving forward with his campaign? Share your thoughts in the comments section down below.
