Bradley Cooper Says He Was “Embarrassed” Following Best Director Snub

While Bradley Cooper has had an incredible year thanks to the success of A Star Is Born, he’s also had to learn to deal with rejection.

Though the movie has racked up a number of award nominations in recent months, it has not won as many prizes as people would’ve thought.

Not to mention, the 44-year-old also didn’t get nominated for Best Director at the 2019 Oscars, which came as a shock to many.

However, while speaking with Oprah Winfrey in New York City on Tuesday, February 5, Bradley revealed he wasn’t surprised he didn’t get nominated, but he did feel another emotion.

“I’m never surprised about not getting anything,” he shared.

“But it’s funny you ask this because I’ve thought about this. I was with my friend at a coffee shop in New York City, and I looked down at my phone and Nicole [Caruso, his publicist] had texted me congratulations on these other things but didn’t tell me the bad news.”

He continued, “And I went, ‘Oh, wow.’ And the first thing I felt was embarrassment, actually. Think about it. I felt embarrassed that I didn’t do my part.”

Though he didn’t get the director nom, Bradley did get three other nominations — Best Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Picture.

The good news is he quickly realized he didn’t need recognition to know he did his part for the movie.

“Even if I got the [Best Director] nomination, it should not give me any sense of whether I did my job or not. That’s the trick, to make something that you believe in,” he said.

“The only thing I set out to do was to tap into as an authentic place as possible — in myself and everybody I asked to make this movie — to tell a human story of people who are going to deal with their family life, trauma as a child, addiction in a real way, love in this life and finding your voice.”

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