Mark Ruffalo reveals which fellow Oscar nominee he wouldn’t mind losing to

‘Poor Things’ star is among the Best Actor in a Supporting Role nominees at the 2024 Oscars

Mark Ruffalo has admitted that while he’d like to win his first Oscar at the forthcoming March ceremony, there is one fellow nominee in particular whom he wouldn’t mind losing the category to.

The Poor Things star, 56, landed his fourth Best Supporting Actor nomination for his role in Yorgos Lanthimos’s absurdist comedy sci-fi.

Ruffalo is up against Sterling K Brown (American Fiction), Ryan Gosling (Barbie), Robert Downey Jr (Oppenheimer) and Robert De Niro (Killers of the Flower Moon) for the prize at the 2024 Academy Awards.

“I really want Robert [Downey Jr] to win an Oscar,” the 13 Going on 30 actor told British GQ of his longtime friend and collaborator. “I mean, I’d like to win one too, but I would celebrate him.”

The pair have co-starred in numerous Marvel movies together, as well as in David Fincher’s 2007 crime thriller Zodiac.

This most recent nomination has put Ruffalo among an elite group of actors, including Jack Nicholson and Al Pacino, who collectively hold the record for the most Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominations.

He has previously landed nominations for his supporting roles in The Kids Are All Right in 2011, Foxcatcher in 2015 and Spotlight in 2016.

Emma Stone and Mark Ruffalo in ‘Poor Things’ (AP)

Downey Jr, too, has never won an Oscar, though he’s received two other nods: Best Actor in 1993 for Chaplin and Best Supporting Actor in 2009 for Tropic Thunder.

The 58-year-old Oppenheimer actor’s latest win at the 2024 Baftas for his portrayal of Lewis Strauss in Christopher Nolan’s atomic bomb epic, may well signify Oscar glory to come.

Meanwhile, Poor Things and Oppenheimer lead this year’s Oscar tally with 11 and 13 nods respectively, including for Best Picture and Best Director.

Ruffalo’s Poor Things co-star Emma Stone, who plays Bella Baxtor, a grown woman implanted with a child’s brain, is competing in the Best Leading Actress category against Nyad’s Annette Bening, Killers of the Flower Moon’s Lilly Gladstone, Anatomy of a Fall’s Sandra Hüller and Maestro’s Carey Mulligan.

Find the full list of 2024 Oscar nominees here.

The winners will be announced during the live broadcast at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on 10 March beginning at 4pm PT/ 7pm ET.