Get the latest gossip
Bradley Cooper Is So Good at This
“This” being “acting like an asshole.”
He is particularly solid at throwaway insults (in War Dogs: “I can’t spend more than 48 hours in this dump … I was talking about America”), obsessive bits (bullying a teenager into correctly pronouncing “Streisand” in Licorice Pizza, all as a flex to brag about dating Babs), and the one-two punch of a stanky line delivery and a daunting stare. Cooper, however, is exceptionally well suited to the stupid phrasing and blunt expressionism of the Righteous Gemstones universe, communicating his character’s visible discomfort at injured soldiers’ bedsides (a deadpan “I’ve been praying this whole time, in my mind” is the best he has to offer during a dying man’s final moments) and shock at the number of people who gather for his Sunday sermon (“Dismissed, amen, yeah”). The Righteous Gemstones has eased off its direct condemnation of the family’s embrace of the prosperity doctrine since the series’ first season, but we get a reprise of it here through Cooper’s covetous handling of all that cash by beautiful flickering candlelight, the dirty bills representing the desire that drew him into this switcheroo and keeps him killing people to cover up his tracks.
Or read this on VULTURE
