Bradley Cooper Thought It Was Nuts When Clint Eastwood Made Him Work With a Fake Baby in ‘American Sniper’

Bradley Cooper had to hold a fake baby for Clint Eastwood’s ‘American Sniper’

Cooper and Eastwood were both praised for their efforts in the movie American Sniper. The pair even got near Oscar glory thanks to the film. Eastwood was nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Meanwhile, Cooper was nominated for Best Oscar. But the highly praised feature also faced a couple of criticisms. In particular, the film was targeted for a laughable scene that showed Cooper cradling a baby he had to pretend was his child.

But Cooper didn’t mind the criticisms. Even he couldn’t get over the bizarre sequence, believing it was nuts.

“I literally couldn’t believe it,” Cooper once said on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. “Like I couldn’t believe we were working with the plastic baby.”

Cooper also joked that using the fake doll saved a fortune on creating a fake baby using CGI. According to The Guardian, the film’s screenwriter, Jason Hall, revealed that the original baby they were going to use became sick. Their back-up baby was a no-show, which meant that they had to resort to using the doll.

Cooper didn’t complain too much about the mishap, however. And even joked that he’d grown fond of the prop.

“I fell in love with that plastic thing,” he quipped.

Why Bradley Cooper compared Clint Eastwood to David O. Russell

Cooper couldn’t help gush about his time working alongside the veteran actor. But he confided that he had to get used to Eastwood’s quick style of filmmaking. The Dirty Harry star is known for only needing few takes to capture an actor’s performance. And American Sniper was no exception.

“First of all, you’re really excited to come on the set every day because Clint Eastwood’s there. That never gets old. It was amazing,” Eastwood once told Canton Rep. “But sometimes you do movies and you feel, ‘Well, I’m warming up on the first three [takes], and then we’ll get into it on seven and eight, and we’ll sort of feel it out.’ But that wasn’t happening on this movie, at all. You better bring it, on the first take. Clint will ask you how you feel and if you want to move on.”

It reminded Cooper of his work with controversial director David O. Russell. Cooper collaborated with Russell on films like Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle. Like Eastwood, Russell also wanted his actors to require as little takes as possible.

“He’ll probably ask you why, and he’ll either say yes or no, do another one. But the truth is there weren’t any more than one or two takes in this film, and then you move on. You have to show up ready,” Cooper said. “I learned that when I made two movies with David O. Russell. With David, when you’d step out of the van in the morning, you’d better be able to shoot the scene from the moment your foot touches the ground.”

Why Bradley Cooper wanted to do ‘American Sniper’

Cooper felt American Sniper was different from other Oscar-winning pictures like Hurt Locker. Based on the real person Chris Kyle, Cooper shared he felt an immediate connection with both Kyle and the character based on him. It also reminded Cooper of a favorite Clint Eastwood movie.

“I love the character study. Growing up, Unforgiven was one of my favorite films, dealing with the psychology of that character,” Cooper told Variety. “Jason Hall came with me with this story. I saw it right away as a war movie but told as a Western. But everything changed when Chris died and Steven Spielberg came in and said, ‘We need to make this movie now.’ That’s when I fell in love with the guy. It was an incredible experience — the investigative process of trying to get inside a human being’s mind and emotions.”