Oscars lowdown: Robert Downey Jr. was the ONLY actor to end his losing streak
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In the run up to the Oscars BestCasinoSites.net wanted to discover who the unluckiest actors and actresses were, looking at the 2024 ‘Best’ and ‘Best Supporting’ nominees who had lost out in previous years.
Of the six 2024 nominees who had previously lost out on Hollywood’s biggest acting awards, ONLY Robert Downey Jr. has been able to turn his luck around, taking home the Best Supporting Actor statuette. Downey Jr’s turn as Lewis Strauss in Oppenheimer, the high-ranking member of the US Atomic Energy Commission, earned him wide-spread critical acclaim, with the role being dubbed his best in "many, many years."
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Hide AdDowney Jr.’s role in Oppenheimer had already earned him the Golden Globe, BAFTA, and Screen Actors Guild awards, leading experts to back him with a huge 94.1% likelihood to win. And win he did - Downey Jr. can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that his losing streak will continue no longer. After missing out for 1993’s Chaplin and 2009’s Tropic Thunder, Downey Jr. has shown that the third time’s the charm.
Unfortunately, the same change in luck didn’t strike Bradley Cooper. Critics had given him just a 2% chance of winning, and so, for the fifth time in a row, the actor has lost out on an acting Oscar (this time to Oppenheimer’s Cillian Murphy). But, even worse, Cooper has also failed to achieve glory for his filmmaking, bringing his losing streak to an agonising 12 over the last decade.
Cooper’s second directing credit, Maestro, has been dubbed 'Oscar bait' by many critics - a desperate attempt to earn the statuette that had (pre-Maestro) alluded him nine times. Although Cooper received two filmmaking nominations for the Leonard Bernstein biopic, he ultimately lost out to Oppenheimer (Best Picture) and Anatomy of a Fall (Best Original Screenplay). Will Cooper continue his Sisyphean pursuit of an Oscar, or will the dozen losses to date persuade him to return to acting for the joy of it, rather than as bait?
Cooper is not alone in his inability to end his losing streak - 2024 nominees Annette Bening, Mark Ruffalo, Carey Mulligan, and Ryan Gosling also continue to miss out. But with that standing ovation after Gosling’s iconic performance of ‘I’m Just Ken,’ does missing out on the Oscar really matter anyway?