Recently, it was revealed that Disney has started awards campaigning for several of its films, including the world-dominating superhero blockbuster “Avengers: Endgame.” Of course, when you have the box office champion, you enter the film in the Best Picture category (as “Avatar” did a decade ago). There’s also a slew of technical categories such as Sound and VFX that ‘Endgame’ likely has a decent shot at winning. But one category that Disney didn’t enter into is Best Actor, as many expected it might, with Robert Downey, Jr’s emotional performance.
And according to a recent interview on Howard Stern, Downey, Jr explains that he heard all the discussion about his role in ‘Endgame’ being a potential Oscar-worthy performance and he quickly shot that down himself.
“I’m so glad you brought this up because there was some talk about it, and I said ‘let’s not’ and because I’m much more like you than you might really want to believe,” the “Iron Man” actor said. “I listen to the show and I agree with most all of your opinions, varied though they may be. Occasionally, you’ll go on some tributary trail of thought [and] I’ll go like, ‘Oh that’s not how I see it, but I love that you see it that way.'”
While there are plenty of fans, including “Avengers: Endgame” filmmakers Joe and Anthony Russo, that believe Downey, Jr deserves some awards recognition for his work in the film, the actor clearly understands that the film isn’t what some might consider a typical Oscar-bait film. And for someone who has conquered awards season before, and has recently become the biggest name in all of cinema, Downey, Jr obviously doesn’t need to get a gold trophy to commemorate his career as Tony Stark.’
As for the now-infamous Martin Scorsese comments that the Marvel films are just “theme parks” and “not cinema,” Downey, Jr takes a more measured approach than we’ve seen with other folks.
“It’s his opinion,” he said. “I mean it plays in theaters. I appreciate his opinion because I think it’s like anything. We need all of the different perspectives so we can come to the center and move on.”
When pressed further, the actor says he wasn’t insulted at all by the comments, and replied, “It’s like saying Howard Stern isn’t radio. It makes no sense to say it.”
Hey, who knows, maybe Robert Downey, Jr is hoping for a Martin Scorsese collab in the future? We shall see. He surely doesn’t have to be too concerned about those annual superhero team-ups anytime soon.