Bradley Cooper on Nightmare Alley’s full-frontal naked scene: ‘That was a big deal’
The actor has reflected on stripping off in front of crew and co-star Toni Collette.
By Will Stroude
Words: Brian Leonard; Images: Kerry Hayes / 20th Century Studios
Bradley Cooper has admitted that shooting his first-ever full-frontal nude scene in Nightmare Alley was a “big deal” for him as a performer.
The US actor, 47, plays con man Stan Carlisle in Guillermo del Toro’s dark psychological thriller, which features an all-star cast including Cate Blanchett, Willem Dafoe, Rooney Mara and Toni Collette.
One notable scene sees Cooper share a charged moment with Collete’s character Zeena Krumbein while naked in a bathtub, and the movie veteran says that getting his kit off in front of crew and co-stars for the first time resulted in a “pretty heavy” day at work.
“The content of what the movie is, what we were exploring, in order to do it in a real way, it demanded that we’d be naked emotionally and soulfully – and even physically for me, which actually was a big deal,” Cooper told KCRW last month.
“I remember reading in the script and thinking, you know, ‘He’s a pickled punk in that bathtub and it’s the story, you have to do it.”
Cooper, who made his big-screen debut playing a gay jock in 2001 US comedy Wet Hot American Summer, went on: “I still remember that day, just to be naked in front of the crew for six hours, and it was Toni Collette’s first day, and it was just like ‘Woah’, it was pretty heavy.
“I’d never done that. That was a big deal.”
He added: “I didn’t push back at all, because I knew there was nothing gratuitous about it. It was just [for the] story.”
which hit UK cinemas last month and is based on William Lindsay Gresham’s 1946 novel of the same name.
Nightmare Alley is in cinemas now. Watch the trailer below: