Robert Downey Jr. Says Playing a Role in 'Oppenheimer' Was Like 'Picking Fly S**t Out Of Pepper'

Robert Downey Jr. compared his preparation for Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer to "picking fly shit out of pepper." In a recent interview published online, Downey Jr. shared how working on HBO's The Sympathizer was a reprieve from the intensity of filming Nolan's 2023 movie, according to HuffPost. Earlier in March, Downey Jr. earned his first Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for portraying the manipulative government official Lewis Strauss in the film. He also discussed the contrasting challenges he encountered while filming the new HBO black comedy drama.

Downey Jr. said, “I knew that playing Strauss, in Oppenheimer, was going to be like picking fly shit out of pepper—that it was going to be extremely exacting, that it was going to be . . . not confining, but liberating by its varied implicit limitations of what my usual toolbox is." In Oppenheimer, Downey Jr. takes on the role of a member of the Atomic Energy Commission and the antagonist to physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer. On the other hand, in The Sympathizer, he portrays various characters in an espionage thriller and cross-cultural satire, based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, as described by HBO.

NME reports that Downey's Oscar victory for Oppenheimer marked his third nomination, having been previously recognized for his roles in 1992's Chaplin and 2008's Tropic Thunder. Additionally, in a January online interview, the former Marvel star described portraying Strauss as a counterintuitive experience. He said, “I know that we’re all mixtures of what our persona is and who we really are. Nolan was inviting me to turn the mirror onto an unexplored portion of myself. And the character, to me, is everybody who has ever felt slighted by somebody who was more important than them. It gave me a lot of time to reflect."

He added, "I wondered if I’ve come off like that to people in the past. And I wondered if I were them if I wouldn’t seek to destroy me.” Additionally, according to Esquire, Downey Jr. had more to say about Strauss. He said, “There are very few things I didn’t like about him. He was a lifelong public servant. I think he was, actually, a hugely principled person, and if I had to say something I dislike about him, I think that he allowed these imagined slights and petty rivalries to get the better of him, and it may or may not have informed some of those decisions he made.”

Despite his career resurgence, which transformed him into one of the industry's top stars, Downey Jr. has rarely ventured outside his comfort zone to tackle radically different roles. Portraying Tony Stark in the Marvel Cinematic Universe for over a decade demanded a specific kind of performance. However, opportunities to push his dramatic talents to their fullest extent were scarce beyond his enduring role as the superhero franchise's leading figure. Additionally, his comedic performance in Tropic Thunder earned him an Academy Award nomination.