Mahershala Ali and Bradley Cooper on ‘Swan Song,’ ‘Nightmare Alley’ and Not Quitting Acting
variety.comBradley Cooper (“Nightmare Alley,” “Licorice Pizza”) and Mahershala Ali (“Swan Song”) sat down for a virtual chat for Variety’s Actors on Actors, presented by Amazon Studios.
For more, click here.This season, both Bradley Cooper and Mahershala Ali are pulling off a double act. Cooper’s fans can see him in two period pieces: As the lead of “Nightmare Alley,” in which he plays a tormented mentalist desperate for validation in the 1940s traveling-carnival scene, and as a key supporting player in “Licorice Pizza,” in which he’s a deranged version of the producer Jon Peters.
Ali’s double duty is more forward-looking, and more literal: In the futuristic sci-fi film “Swan Song,” the Oscar winner plays a dying man as well as the clone who may replace him. MAHERSHALA ALI: How was it making the transition from playing Stanton in “Nightmare Alley” to playing Jon in “Licorice Pizza”?BRADLEY COOPER: The reason that I didn’t give up acting is Paul Thomas Anderson.
When he called me to maybe be in his movie, Mahershala, I mean really, I think I’d open up a door in his movie. I’d do anything.We broke from “Nightmare Alley,” I was able to grow a beard and Searchlight was praying that I didn’t get COVID, because we had to go back and continue “Nightmare Alley,” but I was like, “There’s no way I’m not doing it.” That was the first movie back from COVID.
Read more on variety.com