I'd like to thank my terrible childhood ...
... and the Academy, in that order.
The 97th Oscars are this weekend, and for someone who once chucked it all and headed to Hollywood, its intriguing how few of the performances I've seen.
Among the 10 nominees for Best Picture, for example, I've seen only one: Wicked.
That said, I'm going to watch the event on Sunday evening, or at least keep it on in the background. One of the reasons is that I found something very poignant in one of the acceptance speeches, and I wrote about it at the time. I'd like to adapt and share it here now.
The big winner at the 96th Oscars was Oppenheimer, with seven Academy Awards — including Best Picture, along with Best Director to Christopher Nolan, Best Actor to Cillian Murphy, and Best Supporting Actor to Robert Downey Jr.
Downey’s award stood out. By my count, Oppenheimer was his 82nd movie role, spanning more than 50 years (and making a TON of money playing the Marvel superhero, Iron Man) before finally winning an award like this.
Given how long he’s had to think about what he might say if he won, I had a feeling there might be something profound, or interesting, or at least memorable, in his acceptance speech.
Right out of the gate, he didn’t disappoint:
“I’d like to thank my terrible childhood and the Academy, in that order.”
As they say, comedy is simply tragedy plus time. And I want to focus on this line, especially the first seven words, because honestly — when people think of Robert Downey Jr., I think they think of two things:
A talented generational actor, whose movies have grossed nearly $15 billion over time (second only to Scarlett Johansson).
A man who has battled heavy addiction problems, and at one point was considered so unpredictable that producers had a hard time getting insurance for his roles.
Quick background for those who might not know:
Downey is the son of the late director Robert Downey Sr., and he made his debut at age 5 in one of his father’s films. He was a popular actor in his youth, but Downey’s career was plagued by setbacks, largely because of episodes brought about by addiction.
Among the lowlights, he was arrested in 1996 for having wandered into a neighbor’s house while on some kind of bender and passing out in an 11-year-old child’s bedroom.
He also faced gun charges and escaped from drug treatment. Eventually, a judge sentenced him to three years in prison for breaking parole on previous charges.
He served one year, but he also had other year-long stints in rehab and shorter jail sentences.
“It’s like I have a shotgun in my mouth,” Downey told that judge, “and I’ve got my finger on the trigger, and I like the taste of the gun metal.”
When we talk about his “terrible childhood,” as Downey did in his speech, he’s said before that he first started using drugs — given to him by his father — when he was about 8 years old.
Beyond that, he clearly had a rough time growing up — dealing with his parents’ divorce, moving back and forth across the country to be with each parent in turn, and ultimately dropping out of high school.
Last year, he finally won an Oscar.
Look, maybe it’s easy, or at least easier, to make jokes about a difficult childhood and addiction problems in your past when you’re experiencing a moment of triumph, as Downey was last year.
But I think there’s something very instructive about being able to go a step further and say that you’re actually grateful for those difficult experiences.
Truly, it’s this kind of active gratitude that can be a prerequisite for true success and happiness, no matter what your calling is in life.
I suspect it might be especially true for an actor, because in order to portray emotion on stage or screen authentically, one often has to have truly and thoroughly felt those emotions in reality.
Think of the hardest times in your life — the truly “terrible” experiences you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. Can you find a reason to express gratitude for them?
Reach the point where you can do that, and I think you’ll be worthy of an award of your own.
Poll time. I think there was a time when our media was less segmented that a lot more people would have seen every movie ahead of time and paid close attention to the Academy Awards. But are readers “into” the Oscars in 2025? Let’s find out!
7 other things worth knowing today
Chile’s declared a state of emergency after an electricity blackout plunged most of the country into darkness on Tuesday, including the capital Santiago. The outage – in the middle of Chile’s summer, when temperatures in Santiago are around 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit) – affected some 8 million homes, although 90% were restored by Wednesday. Internet and mobile phone services were down across much of the nation and parts of Santiago’s transport network was suspended, stranding commuters, as officials scrambled to restore power. (CNN)
A child who wasn’t vaccinated died in a measles outbreak in rural West Texas, officials there said Wednesday, the first U.S. death from the highly contagious respiratory disease since 2015. The school-aged child had been hospitalized and died Tuesday night, state officials said, amid the widespread outbreak, Texas’ largest in nearly 30 years. Since it began last month, a rash of 124 cases has erupted across nine counties. (AP)
Elon Musk is on a mission to cut government spending to the bone. So, the Washington Post went on a deep dive to try to figure out how much he's benefited personally from federal spending in building his fortune. Their tally: $38 billion, at the very least. (Washington Post)
Predicting This Year’s Oscar Winners Using Just Math: 'Anora' has a 52 percent chance to win best picture, per a mathematical model that takes into account industry awards, critics scores and betting markets. (Hollywood Reporter)
A new book announced on Wednesday aims to tell a behind-the-scenes story about Joe Biden’s bid for a second term, promising to reveal a top-level cover-up about his decline in health, its publisher said. Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again, will be released on May 20. It's written by the CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios correspondent Alex Thompson. (The Guardian)
The Washington Post will no longer publish opinion columns that oppose the core views of Post owner and Amazon executive chair Jeff Bezos. “We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets,” Bezos wrote in an email to staff. Opinion articles that oppose these two pillars, Bezos says, “will be left to be published by others.” (The Verge)
How a son spent a year trying to save his father from conspiracy theories. (NPR)
Thanks for reading. Photo by Mirko Fabian on Unsplash. I wrote about some of this before at Inc.com. See you in the comments!
Yes, there are blessings to be gleaned from a traumatic childhood. It may take a lifetime to find your gemstones but it’s worth the dig.
before anyone blames RFK Jr for the measles outbreak,
The virus has largely spread among rural, oil rig-dotted towns in West Texas, with cases concentrated in a “close-knit, undervaccinated” Mennonite community, state health department spokesperson Lara Anton said.
I'm not saying I'm for/against RFK Jr, however, he has had his children, all of them, vaccinated.
I will say it's documented that illegals crossing into TX are NOT vaccinated.