Robert Downey Jr. Juggled Oscars Weekend with His Kids’ Ball Games: ‘Both Starting Pitchers’ (Exclusive)

The day before the 2024 Oscars, Robert Downey Jr. he was faced with making an important decision.

Not about who to thank in yet another possible acceptance speech — but he delivered several with humor and self-deprecation as he swept the awards circuit for his portrayal of scheming bureaucrat Lewis Strauss in Oppenheimer.

No, Downey, 58, and his wife of 18 years his junior, Susan, 50, “had to make a real high-level executive call,” he says: What parent would follow son Exton, 12, to Little League, and what parent would root for daughter Avri, 9, at her softball game?

“They were both starting pitchers,” Downey notes—so this was serious business. In the end, Downey settled on Exton, and Susan, who is also the actor’s producing partner at their company Team Downey, backed Avri. The actor says, “We had to divide and rule.”

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Robert Downey Jr. and Susan Downey attend the 2024 Vanity Fair Oscar Party.

Karwai Tang/WireImage

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With all due respect to the kids, it was Downey who knocked it out of the park the next day. Not only did he win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor Oppenheimer but he gave one of the most entertaining speeches of the evening.

“I’d like to thank my terrible childhood and the Academy, in that order,” he said with a laugh.

He then thanked his family, including his three children (Downey is also father to Indio, 30, from a previous marriage) and his “vet, I mean wife,” Susan, whom he met while filming the 2003 thriller. Gothic stylewhich she produced.

“She found me a snarling rescue pet and brought love back into my life,” he continued. “That’s why I’m here.”

Robert Downey Jr. on the cover of PEOPLE’s Oscars issue.

©AMPAS/Matt Sayles/Courtesy of the Academy

Over the past two decades, the couple has built a happy family life, which Downey — who next appears in the HBO miniseries Sympathizerproduced by Team Downey — credit for landing it.

“It gives me something to relate my neurosis to, which is positive,” she jokes while speaking with PEOPLE at the post-Oscars Governors Ball shortly after her win.

“We all love his playfulness,” adds Susan. No matter what hobby Exton and Avri are into, Downey gets into it. “He really cares about everything they care about. And he will be lenient,” she says. “Few years ago [they were] into the art of pancakes. We had everything you need for pancake art.”

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Susan Downey and Robert Downey Jr. at the Academy Awards on March 10.

John Shearer/WireImage

“What I love is that I think for kids, that whatever we’ve built, whatever it is — and the wonderful cast of characters that we have that circulate through lunches and dinners and are in our house — for kids, he just built that a really safe space for them to figure out who they are and express themselves,” says Susan.

“He’s definitely a source of humor, wit and joy,” she continues of Downey. “I see it coming out in my kids and I know where it’s coming from. And it’s just a very happy, very creative environment, and I believe he encourages it.”

For more on Robert Downey Jr., pick up the new issue of PEOPLE.

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