BAFTA Awards: Robert Downey Jr. Thanks ‘That Dude’ Christopher Nolan

The actor was contending against names such as Robert De Niro for “Killers of the Flower Moon,” Jacob Elordi for “Saltburn,” Ryan Gosling for “Barbie,” Paul Mescal for “All of Us Strangers” and Dominic Sessa for “The Holdovers.”

Downey Jr. said: “When I was 15, I wanted to be Peter O’Toole. When I was 25, I worked for Richard Attenbourgh and Anthony Hopkins. When I was 35, I finally understood why Dickie thought Tony would be a better role model for me than Peter.”

He added that when he was 42, he did two films for ‘Guy Ritchie’ and “learned how to make big Hollywood movies with a civil British flare. I then played a guy named Tony in the MCU for about 12 years,” reports variety.com.

The Hollywood star continued: “And then recently, that dude Chris Nolan suggested I attempt an understated approach as a last-ditch effort to perhaps resurrect my dwindling credibility. So I share this with my fellow nominees, this has been an exceptional year.”

In Nolan’s epic biopic of J. Robert Oppenheimer, who created of the world’s first atomic bomb, Downey Jr. played Lewis Strauss, a high-ranking member of the US Atomic Energy Commission who became hostile to Oppenheimer and sought to prove he was disloyal to the US.