It’s the 2024 Oscars. The 49-year-old Bradley Cooper wore a black Louis Vuitton suit and once again brought his mom, Gloria Campano, to the red carpet, all in hopes of changing his fate at the Academy Awards.
In 2024, Cooper became one of the most nominated celebrities on the planet with ‘Maestro’ as the actor was honored with writing, producing, and starring nominations. Still, it seems Cooper didn’t get to hold that Oscar after all.
By 2024, Bradley Cooper was nominated 12 times for the Oscars, 4 for Best Actor, 1 for Supporting Actor, 5 for Best Picture, and 2 for Original Screenplay. Still, Cooper has never won an Oscar in his career, many calling him desperate and try-hard Cooper for his 2024 Oscars campaign.
So, why was Bradley Cooper nominated so many times at the Oscars, and why didn’t he win any?
To start off, let’s understand how an Oscar is chosen.
Basically, who wins the Oscar completely depends on the votes. The Academy now has over 10,500 members, and they all vote in a given category amongst all the 23. It may be direction, sound, actors, writers, and more.
Once the members finished voting, we get the nominees of an year. Then, the Academy votes to select one winner in each category.
There’s also the campaigning part, where nominees can spread the word. For the best picture award, the votes go in order of preference from low to high.
So, how do you win an Oscar, or rather, why didn’t Bradley Cooper didn’t win an Oscar yet?
The answer to this is not simple. But let me explain it.
Bradley Cooper is a brilliant actor, storyteller, and producer, but fortune doesn’t always favor the brave. Most Oscar awards go to the film that is both critically and financially successful. Films that have a wide appeal and broke the code or even tried to reinvent the wheel when it came to specific parts of the story. Something different than what the other films are trying to do, be it storytelling, acting, or the technical stuff.
In addition, it all depends on voting. If you are not in the spotlight, making some noise, people may forget you or not rank you higher, but again, if you try to come across as desperate, no one will vote for you.
This is exactly what happened to Bradley Cooper. We all know he is talented and deserves an Oscar, but his dodgy campaigning came across as pushy. Oscar snubs are common and are typically not a bad thing if you focus on what truly matters.
Stars like Amy Adams, Meryl Streep, and Leonardo DiCaprio struggled at the Academy Awards. Even Martin Scorsese has only won one Oscar, that too in 2007 for The Departed.
But not everyone can let go of it. Rightfully, for different reasons, too.
Bradley Cooper once mentioned that a director made fun of him for having 7 nominations and not winning any. This really doesn’t have to be the end for Cooper.
What we think is that stars with a huge number of nominations and no wins can either take it as an insult or think they have nothing to prove at this point, focus on good stories, and eventually get the award—as Cillian Murphy did with Oppenheimer at the 2024 Oscars.
