Robert Downey Jr.’s heralded turn as nefarious government official Lewis Strauss in “Oppenheimer” has won him an Oscar — finally. It’s a long awaited triumph following two previous nominations, for 1992’s “Chaplin” and 2008’s “Tropic Thunder.”
His win marks a major footnote in Oscar history: Downey is the first ever former “Saturday Night Live” cast member to ever take home cinema’s biggest honor. In 1985, a 20-year-old Downey was hired for the show’s most infamous and least nostalgically appreciated season (which also included Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Joan Cusack and the actor’s frequent costar Anthony Michael Hall). Most of them got pink-slipped the very next year due to poor notices and ratings.
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