Sterling K. Brown Predicts He’ll Lose the Oscar to Robert Downey Jr.: “He’s Incredibly Deserving”

Sterling K. Brown said he isn’t expecting to take home an Oscar this year, but he’s “totally fine” with it.

The actor, who is up for best supporting actor for his role in American Fiction, recently joked during an appearance on The Graham Norton Show, “There’s no losing yet — it’ll happen in its own due time.”

Brown proceeded to say that “Colman [Domingo] will probably win,” adding, “I know that I’m not going to win.” Domingo was also a guest on the BBC show, as well as scored a best leading actor Oscar nomination for Rustin.

Though Graham Norton and the other guests pushed back, telling Brown that he still has a good chance at winning, the This Is Us actor admitted he’s “totally fine” if he doesn’t take home the trophy.

“Robert Downey Jr. is going to win, and he’s incredibly deserving,” Brown said of the Oppenheimer star and his fellow nominee. “He’s an incredible actor. You should give him love. And the fact that I get a chance to be nominated along with him and Mr. [Robert] De Niro and Ryan Gosling and [Mark] Ruffalo, I’m just happy to be in the room.”

Norton went on to tease Brown on his perspective should he end up winning the Academy Award. “On the night, this will all be very humble,” the host quipped. “’I can’t believe I won!’”

Brown told The Hollywood Reporter last month that he thought the Cord Jefferson-directed movie, adapted from Percival Everett’s 2001 novel Erasure, “was one of the best scripts I’d ever read.”

“It was able to make fun of an industry and also challenge it to say there are ways in which you could be better,” he said of American Fiction. “You are narrow in terms of Black life that you are willing to portray for mass consumption. I’m going to tell you that, and at the same time, I’m going to give you an idea of other stories that would be viable for mass consumption.”