Robert Downey Jr declines to campaign for Iron Man for the Oscars: 'Doing the MCU films was a reward in itself'

While Marvel fans and many of his collaborators are campaigning hard for Robert Downey Jr to get an Academy nomination for his portrayal of Iron Man, the actor chooses to stay out of the race. Downey made the striking revelation at Howard Stern’s Sirius XM talk show on 7 October. The two also got on the subject when Downey made a quip about Martin Scorsese’s recent comments to Empire magazine that Marvel movies are "not cinema. " [caption id=“attachment_7473121” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] Robert Downey Jr as Iron Man. Image from Twitter[/caption] When the radio host expressed his frustration with Oscar voters for not taking a superhero movie role like Downey’s seriously, the actor said, “I’m so glad you brought this up because there was some talk about (putting my name forth for an acting Oscar), and I said ’let’s not.’ Doing (the MCU films) was their own reward. I don’t know that it’s time or if I am the guy … to have the Academy recognize. (sic)” Downey said. As far as Scorsese’s thoughts on Marvel movies not being “cinema,” Downey was courteous about what could’ve seemed like a slam on his work. “It’s his opinion,” he told Stern. “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.” Disney launched its 2019 For Your Consideration website at the beginning of October and confirmed it would be campaigning its record-breaking  superhero film  Avengers: Endgame  for various Oscar categories. Soon Marvel fans launched a petition to have Downey nominated for the Oscars for his performance in the film. Iron Man director and Marvel co-star Jon Favreau, who has been advocating for a Downey Oscar nomination since the release of Avengers: Endgame in April, told Variety, “He has my vote for sure. I think he was able to discover and explore dimensions of the character over the course of many, many films, which is a bit of its own category. But I have to say that if you look at, especially how it began and how it ended in his performances between the first one and Endgame, there was a really thoughtful arc to the character, both in his performance and how all the filmmakers contributed to that character.” In earlier interviews, Endgame director Joe Russo had also coined his opinion on Downey receiving an nomination. Russo stated that he had never seen people react and cry to any performance in the past the way they did for Tony Stark. While superhero movies finally broke through their way at the Oscars earlier this year with Black Panther, bagging six nominations in technical categories and winning Best Original Music Score, Best Costume Design and Best Production Design, it seems a struggle to find acting nominations. Downey has been previously nominated for an Oscar for other works, including for best actor for 1992’s Chaplin and best supporting actor for 2008’s Tropic Thunder. Check out Downey’s thoughts on Oscar nomination here