Disney recently unveiled their For Your Consideration pages for some of their movies this year, with the studio planning to push AVENGERS: ENDGAME hard in several awards categories, including Best Picture. But one absence from their FYC page that made headlines was that of star Robert Downey Jr. in the Best Actor field. The discussions were heavy as to why Disney would seemingly abstain from campaigning such a powerful performance, but Downey recently revealed it was his call and declined to be pushed for awards consideration.
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The actor was speaking with Howard Stern recently about many things, one of them being Martin Scorsese’s recent comments about the Marvel movies. Going back and forth about what the director really meant and how he may feel about the Marvel movies, the topic of Downey’s lack of Oscar nominations for his work as Tony Stark/Iron Man eventually came up. The matter was brought up at the Disney offices too, it seems, and Downey said, “There was some talk about it, and I said, ‘let’s not.’”
Studios have a tendency to go all out when they campaign for Oscars — simply because it does them no harm to — and so it was a bit of a shock to see Disney wasn’t pushing for Downey, especially given the magnitude of his final performance as Stark. We can debate all day whether or not he had a chance of actually securing a nomination, as no actor has been nominated for an Oscar for playing a comic book hero, but he surely turned in work that deserves to at least be considered. At the end of the day, though, Downey is smart enough to know awards are political and involve a lot of feet on the ground and meeting with voters, and a man who has achieved so much with the role already probably just didn’t feel like doing all that business.
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Since his work in the first IRON MAN in 2008 Downey has had what can be called the greatest comeback in movie history, earning mountains of praise (and cash) for his work in the Marvel movies, which has given him even more opportunities. His work as Stark came to an end this year with ENDGAME, which is now the highest-grossing movie ever and sent Downey off with a heartbreaking bang. That level of embrace from the fans around the world, as well as from his peers, seems more than enough for any actor, so a golden trophy probably doesn’t seem necessary to him.
Still, Disney will likely hold screenings of the movie for voters and there it will be hard to not push for the bevy of great performances in it. Whether that means voters will look at the movie as they did BLACK PANTHER will remain to be seen, and hell, Downey could land himself a nod without doing the whole pony show.