Maestro’s Prosthetic Nose Justified By Bradley Cooper After Jewish Stereotyping Accusations

Bradley Cooper speaks out about the decision to use prosthetics in his recent movie Maestro. Starring, co-written, and directed by Cooper, Maestro is a biographical drama that chronicles the life of famous composer Leonard Bernstein with a focus on his marriage to Costa Rican-Chilean actress Felicia Montealegre. The award-winning Carey Mulligan played Montealegre, while other brilliant acts like Maya Hawke, Sarah Silverman, and Matt Bomer also star in the movie. Following the release of Maestro’s trailer, many viewers were unsatisfied with Cooper’s prosthetic nose, arguing it leaned into negative stereotypes.

After months of backlash, outrage, and various accusations regarding the use of prosthetics in his staring role in Maestro, Cooper finally weighs in on the controversy in a conversation on CBS Mornings.

Cooper shared that at first he thought there was no use for it, but he went on to explain that the decision to go with prosthetics bordered on finding some form of balance since he and Bernstein looked nothing alike. Read his full comments below:

“I thought, ‘Maybe we don’t need to do it. But it’s all about balance, and, you know, my lips are nothing like Lenny’s, and my chin. And so we had that, and it just didn’t look right [without the prosthetic].”

The Maestro Nose Controversy Explained

The controversy that surrounded Bradley’s latest movie started brewing as far back as last year when promotional images for Maestro pictured an almost unrecognizable Bradley Cooper in full intense prosthetics as an aged version of Leonard Bernstein. Maestro’s trailer put those images into better perspective as it was revealed that the Academy Award winner would essentially be portraying Bernstein over a couple of multiple periods in his life, both young and old.

The debate that had been simmering since Netflix released Maestro’s promotional images last year boiled over once the trailer was released. Many Jewish commentators in general took to social media to argue that having large, hooked noses similar to Cooper’s prosthetic is an antisemitic stereotype. Another major point of contention was that Jake Gyllenhaal, who is Jewish, was in the process of making a Bernstein movie until Cooper and his team acquired the rights.

The conversations and outrage surrounding Cooper using heavy prosthetics to depict different versions of Bernstein in Maestro eventually snowballed into a larger conversation regarding Jewish representation in Hollywood in general. However, Berstein’s children have come out in support of the movie, noting that their father “had a nice, big nose.” While Cooper’s comments show that there was probably no harm intended in using prosthetics to portray Bernstein, it is also essential that better effort and care is taken when trying to represent Jewish people, so as not to enforce and propagate harmful stereotypes.