Robert Downey Jr. Celebrates Major Personal Achievement at Oscars

HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA - MARCH 10: Robert Downey Jr. accepts the Best Actor in a Supporting Role for "Oppenheimer" during the 96th Annual Academy Awards at Dolby Theatre on March 10, 2024 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

After a long and storied career, Robert Downey Jr. is finally celebrating his first big Academy Award win.

The Iron Man star took home the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Lewis Strauss—J Robert Oppenheimer’s nemesis—in the blockbuster Oppenheimer, at the 96th Academy Awards in Los Angeles—his third nomination at the prestigious film awards.

He'd previously been nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his turn as Charlie Chaplin in 1992's Chaplin, and was nominated for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role after 2008's Tropic Thunder—a controversial role that found the actor playing a method actor insistent on wearing blackface.

This circuit, Downey Jr., 58, had already earned the Golden Globe, Bafta, and Screen Actors Guild awards for the same role this past year, though the competition was stiff, with Robert De Niro up for Killers of the Flower Moon, Ryan Gosling up for Barbie, Sterling K Brown up for American Fiction, and Marvel co-star Mark Ruffalo up for Poor Things.

In his acceptance speech, he jokingly thanked his “veterinarian," er, no, his "wife, Susan Downey," who "found [him] a snarling refuge pet and loved [him] back to life," later noting that he "needed this job more than it needed [him]," which had made him "a better man."

The actor's path through life hasn't been easy, with his very public battle with addiction nearly costing him his career at one point, until he met his second wife, Susan, and went on to fight tooth and nail to prove himself and climb back up the ladder.

Now, he's halfway to an EGOT!

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