Bradley Cooper shared on a recent podcast that a famous director — whom he did not name — told him to his face he didn’t deserve to have racked up seven career Oscar nominations when “A Star is Born” was making the awards rounds.
At a 2017 CAA party, Cooper, told Will Arnett, Jason Bateman and Sean Hayes on the SmartLess podcast, he was talking to a thrice-Oscar-nominated actress (whose name he also withheld) and the director. The helmer told the actor, “What world are we living in where you have seven nominations and she’s only got three?’”
Cooper, who now has nine total Academy Award nominations for co-producing “Joker,” and “Nightmare Alley,” was stunned. As he said on the podcast, “I’m like, ‘Bro, why are you such an a—hole.’ I would never f—ing forget that. Go f— yourself.”
Besides scoring a Best Picture nod in 2019 for “A Star is Born,” which was his directorial feature film debut, Cooper also earned nominations for Best Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay.
And it wasn’t the first time he was made to feel he didn’t deserve to be recognized by the Academy. In 2011, after he received his first nomination for “Silver Linings Playbook,” he said a “hero female actress” told him in a condescending way, “I saw your movie. You deserve the nom.” “I was like, ‘What? I’m sorry, what?’ ‘The nom.’ Then like 10 or 20 minutes later — I’m not kidding — I passed her going to the bathroom and she mouths it, ‘The nom.’ I remember [thinking], what the f— is this town?’ Can you imagine saying that to somebody? You’ve got to be f—d up to do that.”
But despite starting off his career with “zero self-esteem,” he’s doing just fine, directing himself as Leonard Bernstein in the upcoming biopic, “Maestro.”
He told the podcast co-hosts, “I had a secret weapon in ‘A Star is Born.’ It was Lady Gaga. The secret weapon I have in this movie is f—ing Leonard Bernstein and Gustav Mahler. The music!”
