“Beta blocker”: Robert Downey Jr.'s heartfelt speech after winning Best Supporting Male Actor at Golden Globes 2024

Hollywood superstar Robert Downey Jr. won the Golden Globes award in the Best Supporting Actor category for his stint in Christopher Nolan’s critically acclaimed film Oppenheimer on Sunday, January 7, 2024. The movie brought to the screen one of Nolan’s most ambitious projects, a sweeping epic-thriller that delved deep into the psyche of a brilliant American scientist.

Inspired by the Pulitzer Prize-winning book American Prometheus by Martin J Sherwin and Kai Bid, Oppenheimer narrates the legacy and life of legendary physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, dubbed the father of the atomic bomb.

Actor Robert Downey played the role of Lewis Strauss, the founding commissioner of the Atomic Energy Commission in 1947. When he walked the stage of the Golden Globes 2024, the Hollywood icon ended up receiving a heartfelt standing ovation. The Iron Man fame began his acceptance speech with a “beta blocker” joke:

“Yeah, yeah, I took a Beta blocker so this is going to be a breeze.”

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Rober Downey Jr.’s Golden Globes acceptance speech

Robert Downey Jr.'s speech Golden Globes 2024 went on to thank Universal for going all in and recruiting a brilliant crew:

“A sweeping story about the ethical dilemma of nuclear weapons grosses 1 billion dollars, does that track? No, unless and but because Universal went all in on Christopher Nolan, to direct Cillian Murphy with Emma Thomas producing with Emily and Florence and this cast and crew and helped them render a goddamn masterpiece.”

In Robert Downey Jr.'s speech, he called it the “most improved” award and also gave a shoutout to his “primary caregiver,” wife Susan Downey. According to him, she “literally made an art out of extracting me from my comfort zone. But she's easy on the eyes, so whatever."

If that wasn’t enough, the Iron Man actor referred to his agents as dueling career counsels and added:

“They had the gall to say I needed to re-start my career, it’s so fun proving agents right.”

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About Robert Downey Jr.’s Oppenheimer character

Robert Downey Jr.’s Lewis Strauss played a significant role in the creation of the deadliest weapon known to humanity. He met J. Robert Oppenheimer as a trustee of the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton University and thereafter began a fraught relationship between the two men.

They were both wildly ambitious, stubborn, and earnestly patriotic in their own ways, which eventually made them each other’s political rivals.

Strauss, a Southern, was a political conservative and dogmatically anti-Communist. Meanwhile, Oppenheimer was from the Northeast, a highly-educated man and an ardent liberal with left-leaning politics.

Besides Robert Downey Jr., actor Cillian Murphy played the titular role of the scientist who headed the Manhattan Project that led to the creation of the atomic bomb. Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, and Florence Pugh also co-starred in the film helmed by Christopher Nolan.

While Robert Downey Jr. won the Best Supporting Actor accolade, his fellow nominees in the category included Willem Dafaoe from Poor Things, Robert De Niro from Killers of the Flower Moon, Mark Ruffalo from Poor Things, Charles Melton from May December and lastly, Ryan Gosling for Barbie, the movie that gave Oppenheimer a tough competition at the box office.

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Those interested can watch the 81st golden globes presenters and Robert Downey Jr.'s speech Golden Globes 2024 on CBS, and it is also available to stream on Paramount+ the following day.