Brad Pitt bestowed friend and actor Bradley Cooper with one of the Santa Barbara Film Festival’s top honors, Outstanding Performer of the Year, for his role as Leonard Bernstein in the biopic ‘Maestro’.
Pitt paid tribute to Cooper in a humorous way. He quipped that the two have a “couple of things in common,” including “being a movie superstar and also a name,” according to People.
He went on to say that after seeing Cooper’s work in ‘The Hangover’, he felt there was something special about him.
“You’ll see the more irreverent that Alan [Zach Galifianakis] gets, the more that Phil [Cooper] is enjoying that irreverence. It’s subtle. It’s often to the side of the frame, but it’s there and it’s interesting, and I know this sounds strange, but I was watching that and I know no one else would have brought that to the to the table. And it was something fresh. I knew this guy was going to be around,” said Pitt.
Pitt then discussed Cooper’s 2018 directorial debut, A Star Is Born, which he also acted in and penned the screenplay for.
“[It’s] a film that’s been made a few times, it’s been made really well, so the bar is so high, and yet he’s able to bring in his performance where he’s able to play drunk when he breaks down and still keep an eye on the crew to see the time when to know that he’s got the tape and you can move on.”
“To do that really, really well is nothing short of perfect,” Pitt added.
Pitt then gave his thoughts on Cooper’s most recent effort. He hailed ‘Maestro’ “a masterwork” and described a scene between Cooper and Carey Mulligan, who plays the late composer-conductor’s wife, Felicia Montealegre, as “alive, kinetic, and so natural.”
“This is really really, really difficult to achieve. And yes, it takes great actors but it also takes great construction. Now I’m not gonna say I know for certain what’s at the heart of Bradley’s brilliance, but I am going to take a stab at it. What I think it is is his voracious love for this little thing we call the human experience and all its struggles and joys and messiness. My man’s in it, he doesn’t run from any evidence and I think it’s that that he infused into each frame that he puts up on the screen,” Pitt said.
Pitt closed his speech by expressing his desire for Cooper’s success at the forthcoming Oscars, where Maestro is nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Mulligan for Best Actress, and Cooper for Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay (co-written with Josh Singer).
“He’s been nominated 12 times and I really, really hope that this is his year, because he’s willing, but if it’s not, it’s okay, everyone knows it’s just a matter of time,” said Pitt, calling Cooper “the one and only Bradley,” before going on to joke, “And truly Brad is okay, he’s fine. He’s used to it. He’s a Philadelphia Eagles fan.”
Pitt is presenting Cooper with his honor four years after Cooper presented Pitt with the prize for best supporting actor for Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood at the National Board of Review Annual Awards Gala in January 2020.