Bradley Cooper has been accused of ‘ethnic cosplay’ over his transformation into legendary composer Leonard Bernstein.
Cooper will star as the conductor in the upcoming Netflix film Maestro, which he also directed. The actor's portrayal of Bernstein, who was Jewish, saw him plied with make-up and prosthetics to portray the composer in his later years. However, some questioned why the role wasn’t given to someone of Jewish ethnicity.
Responding to first look photos released earlier this month of Cooper in character, film critic Daniel Fienberg wrote in a series of tweets: "Sigh. My question, 'How many pounds of latex would it take to make Bradley Cooper into an elderly Jewish man?' was supposed to be rhetorical.
"The answer, BTW, is 'Enough latex that somebody should probably find it a hair problematic’.”
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Fienberg went on: “My critiquing of Bradley Cooper converting to Latex Judaism caused me to fail to even notice Carey Mulligan as Leonard Bernstein's first wife, who was Chilean-Jewish. That's a LOT of ethnic cosplay for one movie."
Carey Mulligan portrays Felicia Montealegre in Maestro. Montealegre was born Catholic but converted to Judaism after tying the knot with Bernstein in 1951.
Fienberg wasn’t the only person to take to Twitter to criticise Cooper’s casting.
One person tweeted: “‘Jews run Hollywood’ and yet I have to see Leonard Bernstein played by Bradley Cooper in an obscene gigantic nose prosthetic. Cool."
Another echoed: “Going to really be… something… when they give this movie an Oscar for putting a man named Bradley Cooper in a prosthetic Jew nose.”
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“I guarantee all the people defending Bradley Cooper donning a nose prosthetic to play a Jew are also up in arms that the new 1776 isn't composed of entirely white men,” tweeted a fourth.
A fifth penned: “I can't believe people actually believed Bradley Cooper wouldn't be stupid enough to cast himself as a Jew, or miscast his wife.”
UNILAD has approached Cooper’s representative for comment.
Cooper looked unrecognisable in the new stills shared by the streaming platform this week.
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Cooper will be playing the composer at various stages in his life, with impressive makeup work making him unrecognisable as an older version of Bernstein.
The actor previously revealed to Variety that it won’t drop in theatres and/or on Netflix until 2023.
He also shared that Steven Spielberg was originally meant to direct Maestro, but the actor had his heart set on filmmaking again after A Star is Born.
“I [told Spielberg], ‘I always felt like I could play a conductor, but may I research the material and see if I can write it and direct it? Would you let me do that?’” he said.
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“Steven has a lot of interests – he’ll just choose one thing and all of the other things will be on hold. I think he knew he wasn’t going to make that movie for a while. He was kind enough to hand it off to me, and that’s what I’ve been doing for the last four-and-a-half years.”
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Topics: Film and TV, Netflix