It feels like an eternity ago, but it was just back in 2019 when Bradley Cooper's take on A Star Is Born became a talking point of award show season.
At the time, many felt that the actor turned director was snubbed by the Oscars. Even Cooper expressed his surprise at not being nominated for Best Director, telling Oprah, "The first thing I felt was embarrassment, actually. I felt embarrassed that I didn’t do my part."
With that moment now in his rearview mirror, Cooper opened up about how he sees award shows to A Star Is Born and Hamilton's Anthony Ramos for Interview Magazine.
When Ramos described a key issue with award shows in general — "It can be easy for us to make it about individual people. But on set, you have your call sheet, and even though you have your leads, it’s a team effort... Everyone is the star of that movie" — Cooper echoed the sentiment.
"That’s right," he said, adding that individuals up for awards can often end up feeling that they "must be special."
Though Cooper and Ramos didn't mention it in the published interview, award shows also have a real issue with representation within the nominees. This past year at the Oscars, for example, there was only one nonwhite actor who was nominated among Actor in a Leading Role, Actress in a Leading Role, Actor in a Supporting Role, and Actress in a Supporting Role: Harriet's Cynthia Erivo.
Cooper went on to share about award show season, in general, "It’s quite a thing to work through, and it’s completely devoid of artistic creation. It’s not why you sacrifice everything to create art, and yet you spend so much time being a part of it if you’re, in quotes, 'lucky enough to be a part of it.'"
In his opinion, there is some value in the experience, and it's "interesting" in the way that it "makes you face ego, vanity, and insecurity," but it's also "utterly meaningless.”
