The Iron Man-actor has also seen the multiple Oscar-winner Slumdog Millionaire. “I think it was a fantastic film,” he says. Depicting one of the most loved and respected characters in the world of literature in never an easy task. So what did he find the challenging? “This is how sick I am. I don’t think there’s anything that could be too challenging for me or even most challenging,” says Downey Jr. ” I have an illness of confidence.” Downey Jr feels that it was the strong script that did most of the job. “Honestly, we had a strong script; rather, we had a really strong structure, and therein it was really up to us how far we wanted to exploreand how exhaustingly we wanted to do rewrites and all that other stuff,” he says.

And what about his association best-man Watson Jude Law. “We were pursuing Jude, and, understandably, he was cautiously optimistic. I asked him to come over to…and we hit it on from there.

Going zero-for-five on her previous Oscar nominations, best actress contender Kate Winslet said the experience has given her a “good losing face”. Penelope Cruz, with her second Oscar nomination, this time for supporting actress, said that winning would be great, but she simply wants to cherish the whole Oscar ride.

Robert Downey Jr. has not been up for an Oscar in the 16 years since he earned a best actor slot for the title role in Chaplin. Downey found irony in his supporting actor nomination for Tropic Thunder, in which he is cast as an obsessed actor who undergoes a medical procedure to darken his skin to play a black soldier.

“The funny thing is, I was playing an Oscar-crazed weirdo whose every motivation was somehow geared toward accolades,” he said.