WARNING: SPOILERS ahead for The Bear season 3.

Bradley Cooper made an incredibly brief “guest appearance” in The Bear season 3. While the highly-anticipated third season of the Emmy-winning series lives somewhere in the monolithic shadow of seasons 1 and 2, The Bear season 3 still featured several highlights and expansions to the beloved characters and rich backstory. Similar to the star-studded season 2 before it, The Bear season 3 has several cameos including newcomers such as David Zayas, Josh Hartnett, and, most surprising of all, John Cena as Sammy Fak. The new season earned a critic score of 94% on Rotten Tomatoes but has a series-low audience score of 59%.

Cooper, who recently starred in and directed the Leonard Bernstein biopic Maestro, has been nominated for a remarkable 12 Academy Awards but has yet to take home his first Oscar. He has also interestingly never been nominated for an Emmy but still appeared in the Emmy-winning The Bear, which took home 10 awards at the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards held in January 2024. Cooper is set to star in and direct his Maestro follow-up titled Is This Thing On? that will also star Will Arnett based on a screenplay written by Arnett and Mark Chappell. He is also expected to star in Steven Spielberg’s upcoming movie based on Frank Bullitt.

Bradley Cooper Is Shown As A Famous Chef In The Bear Season 3’s Finale

Cooper played a fictional hotshot chef in 2015’s Burnt

Bradley Cooper is shown as one of the famous chefs on display at the Ever “funeral service” in The Bear season 3 finale. Ever was the world-renowned restaurant in Chicago owned and operated by Chef Andrea Terry, played by Olivia Colman, who was one of the biggest supporters and influences on Carmy’s (Jeremy Allen White) rise to critical acclaim. Both Carmy and Will Poulter’s character Chef Luca are part of a collage of acclaimed chefs who worked at Ever. While Carmy and Luca are obviously fictional chefs, several real-life chefs also make cameos in The Bear, adding real-life authenticity to the season 3 finale.

Cooper appears in a still image from his 2015 movie Burnt, which received mostly poor reviews. Directed by John Wells, Burnt follows Cooper’s fictional chef character Adam Jones who destroyed his career through drugs and intolerable behavior. In the fictional world of Burnt, Adam Jones was once the head chef of a two-star Michelin restaurant who lost it all due to his rockstar mentality and antics. While the film is a work of fiction, Adam Jones is loosely inspired by real-life celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain. Gordon Ramsay also trained Cooper for the role, which added authenticity to the project.

How The Bear Season 3’s Bradley Cooper Reference Connects To 2015’s Burnt

It could mean Cooper will reprise his Burnt role in The Bear season 4

Outside of the fact that Cooper is meant to be interpreted as his character Adam Jones from the movie Burnt, there’s absolutely no overlap between the 2015 film and the celebrated Hulu series. It’s unclear exactly what the inclusion of Adam Jones in The Bear’s season 3 finale means. It might be a reach to say that it’s a hint of what’s to come in The Bear season 4, but a potential Bradley Cooper cameo reprising his Adam Jones role in a seemingly unrelated series would be wild. With massive movie stars such as Josh Hartnett and John Cena now entering The Bear’s universe, it may not be entirely out of the question.

More realistically, the brief shot of Bradley Cooper’s Burnt character in The Bear could simply be a nod to the underdog story of that film. Adam Jones eventually does the work to improve both personally and professionally by the end of Burnt which earns his restaurant a third Michelin star. This could also hint at the direction of The Bear season 4’s trajectory, with Carmy hustling to earn a Michelin star for The Bear after getting what appears to be a bad review at the end of season 3. However, The Bear is known for its surprise cameos, so Cooper appearing in season 4 is not out of the question.

Does Burnt Take Place In The Bear’s Universe?

It’s unlikely but not out of the question

There’s no actual evidence that Burnt and The Bear take place in the same universe, although the potential remains for a surprise season 4 overlap. While a Bradley Cooper cameo in The Bear might throw some viewers off as the Cena one did, it would easily be the most shocking cameo of the series. The main issue with Burnt is how opposite it is in terms of its popularity and acclaim from The Bear. Burnt is one of the worst-rated movies of Bradley Cooper’s acting career on Rotten Tomatoes, having earned a critic score of just 28%. Since it is by no means considered one of his best or even memorable films, it’s more than likely that Cooper’s “cameo” in The Bear will amount to nothing in future seasons.