Robert Downey Jr. wins best supporting Oscar for 'Oppenheimer'

Robert Downey Jr. wins the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for "Oppenheimer" during the Oscars show at the 96th Academy Awards in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, U.S., March 10, 2024. REUTERS/Mike Blake

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -Robert Downey Jr. won the Academy Award for best supporting actor for his role in "Oppenheimer," where he played a villainous bureaucrat who seeks to destroy the acclaimed physicist.

Downey played Lewis Strauss, the former chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission who mounted a behind-the-scenes campaign to strip J. Robert Oppenheimer of his security clearance by tarring him as a communist.