When Bradley Cooper was nominated this morning for an Best Actor Oscar for his performance in American Sniper, he became only the 21st actor ever to get Oscar nominations in three successive years. When I saw that, I thought, “That’s odd that we are now putting the guy from Wedding Crashers in the same category as Tom Hanks,” but then I looked it up and realized that not even Hanks had three successive nominations (he had back-to-back wins, but not noms in three consecutive years).
But it does mean that Bradley Cooper is among a mostly elite list that includes Marlon Brando, Jack Nicholson, Gregory Peck, Meryl Streep, Glen Close, Ingrid Bergman, Gary Cooper, Spencer Tracy, Elizabeth Taylor, Bette Davis, and Al Pacino, otherwise known as some of the best actors in the history of film.
Does Bradley Cooper belong among them? It’s hard to imagine the guy from The Hangover belonging in that same rarified air, but not as hard as it is to imagine Renee Zellweger among them.
Renee Zellweger?
Yep. From 2001-2003, she was nominated for Best Actress in Bridget Jones Diary and Chicago and Best Supporting Actress in Cold Mountain.
Let’s quickly revisit Zellwegger’s ATROCIOUS accent in Cold Mountain, which I once ranked as the worst Southern accent in the history of film:
To be fair, Russell Crowe is also on that list for nominations in 1999 (The Insider), 2000 (The Gladiator) and 2001 (Beautiful Mind) and he doesn’t exactly feel like he belongs in that class, either, although I’ll grant that he was incredible in The Insider (as well as L.A. Confidential).
But the question now is, do we have to start thinking of Bradley Cooper as one of the generation’s best actors? Because I like the guy. A lot. But he’s never someone I’d put on a list of greatest actors of the 21st century. I would, however, put him on a list, along with Ted McGinley, of actors, who look the best with popped collars.
