Robert Downey Jr. is no stranger to criticism. In fact, the Marvel Cinematic Universe often has a lot of naysayers and people who want to tear it down. So when Robert Downey Jr. made a tongue and cheek comment about Tony Stark at the BAFTAS, it became a thing.
Downey won for his work in Oppenheimer as Lewis Strauss. When accepting his award, he made a comment about his time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe by saying “I played a guy named Tony in the MCU for about 12 years. And then recently Chris Nolan suggested I attempt an understated approach as a last-ditch effort to resurrect my dwindling credibility.”
Now, for some context, Downey has recently talked about how he feels like Tony Stark is some of his best work and how it went unnoticed because of the biases of those voting in award shows. While talking with Rob Lowe on the Literally! With Rob Lowe podcast, Downey said the failure of Doolittle was humbling after the success of Marvel, but that he thinks that his work as Tony was some of his best and that it was ignored because of the genre.
“I felt so exposed after being in the cocoon of Marvel, where I think I did some of the best work I will ever do, but it went a little bit unnoticed because of the genre,” Downey said. “In a way, I did myself a favor, because the rug was pulled so definitively out from underneath me and all the things that I was leaning on as opposed to what my understanding of confidence and security was, boy did they evaporate. And it rendered me teachable. And the crazy thing is they say, ‘When the student is ready, the teacher will come,’ and that’s what happened.”
Downey is joking!
There were many people online who took Downey’s comment to mean that he was shading the MCU. That’s not at all what he meant. He was shading the critics and the voting parties who ignored his work until Christopher Nolan cast him in Oppenheimer.
Downey had previously been nominated for Academy Awards for his work in Chaplin and Tropic Thunder but, for the most part, he was left out of the award show circuit despite multiple award-worthy performances even before Tony. Then, he was the backbone of the MCU for over a decade and still nothing because it was a “superhero” franchise.
I understand his joke. It took Nolan casting him for him to get instant buzz in every award show for his work while he has been doing work like this since Less Than Zero was released in 1987. This comment has nothing to do with Downey knocking the MCU and everything to do with him standing up for his body of work that has been ignored for years.
He should have gotten nominations for Less Than Zero, Chaplin, Zodiac, and especially, for his dedication to the MCU and Tony Stark but hey, at least he’s getting the recognition he finally deserves for playing Lewis Strauss.
(featured image: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)
