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Bradley Cooper‘s earliest fans probably met the actor as Will Tippin on the hit ABC drama Alias. Of course, just a few years after that show ended, Cooper began his steady rise into the Hollywood A-list. In 2009, The Hangover made Cooper a hot commodity, and a decade later, he’d received several Oscar nominations, including one as a producer on the Oscar-winning film Joker. During the 2022 awards season, however, Cooper could find himself landing double nominations. Here’s why.

Bradley Cooper wears a dark suit as he stands at a podium speaking with his hands out
Bradley Cooper | Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for National Board of Review

Bradley Cooper has never won an Academy Award

Thanks to the success of The Hangover, Cooper’s popularity was on the rise. Over the next couple of years, he began to headline more and more films. But it was 2012’s Silver Linings Playbook that changed everything. In addition to landing an Oscar win for his co-star Jennifer Lawrence, the movie got Cooper his first nomination. And both he and Lawrence earned nods when they reteamed with director David O. Russell for American Hustle the following year.

Subsequently, Cooper got another Best Actor Oscar nod for Clint Eastwood’s 2014 film American Sniper. But although the film was one of the year’s biggest hits, Cooper did not win an Oscar, either as an actor or producer of that movie. Likewise, his producing role on Joker and his starring and producing gigs on his directorial debut, A Star Is Born, left Cooper empty-handed. That could be about to change.

The actor appears in a pair of 2022 Oscar contenders

Bradley Cooper’s Oscar chance in 2022 stems mainly from the fact that he has two heavily lauded movies in the mix. The actor delivers a scene-stealing supporting turn as movie producer Jon Peters in Paul Thomas Anderson’s critically acclaimed coming-of-age drama Licorice Pizza. Cooper already earned a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination as well as a ton of critics’ awards nods for his performance. An Oscar nod very well could be next.

In addition, Cooper is hotly in Best Actor contention for his work in Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley. The director’s previous film, The Shape of Water, went all the way at the Oscars in 2018, winning Best Picture. And though many consider the category to be a three-way race between Will Smith, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Andrew Garfield, industry pundits know better than to bet against Cooper sneaking into the pack of nominees.

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Bradley Cooper already has his next project lined up

Even if Bradley Cooper misses out on landing a rare double-nomination this year, he’ll likely be back in the Oscar conversation with his next film. Maestro — a biopic about Broadway composer Leonard Bernstein — will mark Cooper’s first directorial effort since A Star Is Born. He’s also writing the film and starring as Bernstein.

That movie sounds exactly like the kind of project that the Academy Awards would celebrate. Especially given Cooper’s history with the Oscars, it sounds as if he is destined to get a gold statue sooner rather than later. The only question remaining is which film will be the one to make it happen finally.

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