Bradley Cooper really wants an Oscar for Maestro

In a recent episode of The Howard Stern ShowStrict asked nine-time Oscar nominee Bradley Cooper what he would most like to see: Win Best Director and Best Actor at the 2024 Academy Awards, or for the Eagles to win the Super Bowl. Without missing a beat, Cooper replied: “Eagles Super Bowl win.”

Stern responded with what we were all thinking: “You're lying.” As much of an Eagles fan as he is, Cooper has had a long tango at the Academy Awards. Those nine nominations came from multiple disciplines: four for acting, four for producing and one for writing. In 2015, he achieved the rare feat of being nominated for his performances for three consecutive years, yet still not getting the gold. Withdrawal causes despair. And desperation apparently led to his 2023 Netflix biopic Masterless a film about famed composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein, and more a film about Bradley Cooper finally trying to win his Oscar for Best Actor.

That offer goes far beyond the well-known situation of 'playing a real figure while wearing a prosthesis'. Of Masterhis second directorial role, Cooper confirms his inability to direct a film that ultimately isn't a showcase for his acting prowess.

Proof of this could be seen in his directorial debut, A star is born, which begins as an exciting meeting between Cooper's rock icon father Jackson Maine and rising artist Ally (Lady Gaga), and then sadly devolves into a glorified For Your Consideration role for its lead actor. There's an obvious appeal to Gaga's performance, but Cooper-as-director clearly couldn't help but linger enraptured in his own grumbling, slurred, leathery turn. Surely, he seemed to think, this would be his awards moment?

However, the Academy disagreed and once again he was passed over for Best Actor, this time in favor of Rami Malek in Bohemian Rhapsody. It was clearly time to ditch the dad rock and make a biopic.

Master sees Cooper doubling down on all the unbearable elements of his first film. While Jackson Maine gave him the opportunity for a small transformation, this is a complete metamorphosis. His voice is hyponasal, his face full of prosthetics, and a much-discussed nose doesn't feel so much offensive as strange: in the early black and white scenes, the man looks like Paul Reubens plays Pinocchio. Just in case these physical tweaks prove too subtle for his Academy constituents, he's made sure to speak out about the extensive prep he went through for the film.

“I had five and a half years to work on it,” he says said Stephen Colbert. “I worked with this amazing dialect coach and we worked for five years (…) five days a week, eight hours a day.” For the make-up: “four and a half years.” For conducting: 'six years'. You would think that such immersion would produce a truly lived, transformative performance, but that is not what Cooper is going for here. Showing off the work is the whole point. The film was constructed and written (by Cooper and First man writer Josh Singer) so Cooper can play any scene he wants.

He wants to show how he can have good chemistry with his female co-star, so there's a perfunctory meet-cute. He wants to show that he is not afraid of gay material, so there is a brief interaction with Gideon Glick as Tommy Cothran. (For a film about a gay icon, the film is suffocatingly heterosexual.) And of course he wants to show that he can hold his own on screen in a major motion picture. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?-style fight, so we get an even draggier version of the “You're Just Damn Ugly” bathtub scene A star is bornthis time under the watchful eye of a Snoopy Macy's parade balloon.

Even the central scene of Bernstein conducting in a cathedral plays more like an “I have to do that!” bit more indulgent than the kind of “That's when we see the shark” moment Cooper described it to Colbert. Different than in 2022 TarThere's no satisfaction in the delay before you see Bernstein perform: it's even more puzzling and frustrating that so little of the film concerns its subject's actual artistic contributions. For all we know, this guy could have been an accountant or a plumber. Instead of, Master reduces the man to what Cooper is familiar with playing. Outside of the only conducting scene, Bernstein flirts, cries and screams: he basically does everything that Jackson Maine did A star is bornbut this time with a prosthetic nose.

The result is a film with frustratingly few dramatic or thematic threads; events only seem to happen because Cooper wants to carry them out. This isn't a movie about a man; it's a film about a man who acts.

It is also not a film about a marriage. In perhaps one of the most treacherous pieces of awards campaigning of the season so far, Master's first A series of marketing campaigns brought Carey Mulligan to prominence, with a character poster focused solely on her and excluding Cooper. This and the film's first teaser revealed that Mulligan had also received billing over her co-star, a development that seemed to promise that she would be given a role equal to, if not superior to, Cooper's. That was false advertising, even if at the same time it helped debunk accusations that Cooper had created his own vanity project.

Make no mistake: Mulligan unequivocally gives the film's best performance. It's just that we've seen this Supportive Troubled Wife role before. Master Never treats Mulligan's character, Felicia, as a human being separate from Bernstein. She's there to alternately get frustrated with him and support him, both confidant and “woman on a pedestal.” While it's great that both of Cooper's directorial efforts were two-handers with women, they also ultimately let down their female co-stars, with director Cooper sidelining them so he can let actor Cooper cook.

These views of the film as a self-centered exercise for Cooper may seem like bad faith arguments. But the Academy has had similar problems in the past with rewarding actors who design bait vehicles for themselves; so far, only two men have ever targeted a Best Actor win. The first was ahead of Laurence Olivier Hamlet in 1949. The second, curiously enough, was ahead of Roberto Benigni Life is Beautifulin 1999.

I suspect the Academy's long-standing practice of being cautious about rewarding anything seen as a vanity project will continue at the 2024 awards ceremony, and Cooper will have to “try again next time.” But the Academy does love historical books and biopics, almost as much as it loves awarding the Most Acting, the most notable and obvious achievement of the year. If this is the route it goes again this year, Cooper could finally hear his name called for Best Actor.

Is that the worst thing in the world? After all, Cooper has accomplished many great feats; he is the rare leading man who enjoy character acting. Just two years ago, he delivered one of the great “I'm a movie star, look at me” turns of the past decade in Paul Thomas Anderson's Licorice pizza. He has also demonstrated objective skills in directing. But Master could be a better movie if he acted alone in it, or had someone else direct it in the lead role. It would be fascinating to see his impulses behind the camera applied to a project that wasn't so much about making him look like God's gift for the acting craft.

In both of his films, Bradley Cooper has assembled huge teams of professionals working at the top of their game. He's created two of the rarest things: studio dramas for adults Look Good. He has striven for a kind Real authenticity that is undeniable in both A star is born And Master. It's what makes his self-indulgent performances stand out even more. It's like a Muppet appearing in a Cassavetes movie; it's just not right.

Such antics could very easily be mitigated by a win on Oscar night. Like Leonardo DiCaprio before him, it's possible that the gift of a little golden man will take the pressure off, and the best work of his career may still be ahead of him. Anyway, at least he gets his Oscar. And Masterthe movie about that guy who wanted that trophy will end too.

Master debuts on Netflix on December 20.