Bradley Cooper at the 2022 Oscars: will it be the right time?

The nominations will be announced on February 9, but the American press is ready to bet that the next will be the Bradley Cooper Oscars. The actor, who in the past nine years has been nominated for the award eight times without ever winning it – he was nominated for Best Actor for The positive side (2012), American Hustle (2013), American Sniper (2014) e A Star Is Born (2018) – this year it could win not in one, but in three categories. 46 years old, enviable charm and the rare gift of bringing together both the mainstream audience and the snooty niche, Cooper could, in fact, make it to the Oscars thanks to the role of Jon Peters in the highly anticipated film Licorice Pizza, the last masterpiece by Paul Thomas Anderson that we will see in Italy on February 3, and as the protagonist and producer of The Fair of Illusions – Nightmare Alley, the thriller directed by Guillermo del Toro arriving on January 27th.

Despite his role in Licorice Pizza it lasts very little – about 7 minutes -, critics seem convinced that Cooper could easily win the category of Best Supporting Actor, a category that in recent years has awarded excellent actors such as Christian Bale for The Fighter and Brad Pitt for Once upon a time in … Hollywood. It would not be the first time, on the other hand, that an actor manages to win the statuette for a role of less than 10 minutes, even if we are talking about only four exceptions: it happened, in fact, to Gloria Grahame for The brute and the beautiful (1952), a Ben Johnson per The last show (1971), a Beatrice Straight per Fifth Estate (1976) e a Judi Dench per Shakespeare in love (1998). The other scenario could be that offered by the category of best leading actor, although in pole position this year it seems mostly Will Smith in the role of Venus and Serena Williams’ father in King Richard.

Bradley Cooper, however, could compete thanks to the character of Stanton in The Fair of Illusions – Nightmare Alley, which some say would be one of his best roles ever. For this film, Cooper was neither nominated for a Golden Globe nor a Critics Choice Award, but it may have to do with the fact that the film in America has only been out a week ago. The latest forecasts for the Oscars compiled by Variety they see, in fact, Cooper in the top five candidates for the category, also thanks to the momentum that Anderson’s film has been gaining in recent weeks – Anderson, for his part, has eight nominations under his belt and zero wins -: will they both be able to finally win a statuette? We hope so. Trusting that Bradley won’t end up like Glenn Close, Amy Adams and Ed Harris who, in the face of eight, six and four nominations respectively, have never won an Oscar (at least so far).