So Oscars are in a few weeks.
It's been a four-year ride for you.
So on February 24th, will you finally
be able to breathe and sort of let it go?
Let what go?
The movie?
OPRAH WINFREY: Yes.
Will it feel like done?
The movie felt done a while ago.
Oh, really? BRADLEY COOPER: Yeah.
Yeah.
You know the truth is, this plays
into things that have nothing to do with creating art.
It's a whole other element of the business.
So it's really reconciling its effect on you.
That's the thing that I tend to deal with.
It's like-- because you don't ever do it for--
I never thought ever doing anything for-- first of all,
it just takes too much. It's too hard.
Like you said, you have to have love to put the work in.
OPRAH WINFREY: Yes.
So if it's love to get an Oscar,
that's not enough love to put the work that's needed.
And nobody who ever gets one is thinking about when
you're making that movie, oh, gee,
this is going to be an Oscar.
No, no, it's the joy of doing.
I mean, that's why it's--
and that's why, thank god, you're
able to put so much work in.
This is more about just getting through it really.
This phase?
BRADLEY COOPER: Yeah, and just taking
all the goodness out of it.
And that's it.
So the nominations, the attention, the accolades
mean what to you?
Where do you have that in perspective?
It's so surreal, you know, to be
able to grab Spike Lee yesterday and talk to him,
the guy who made a movie that changed my life,
"Do the Right Thing."
When I saw that movie, it really--
[APPLAUSE]---- yeah-- it really made me rethink what
I thought I knew even as a young man growing up in Philadelphia.
So to be in that world, yeah, I remember the first time I was
nominated, Daniel Day Lewis--
I was in the same category with Daniel Day Lewis and Denzel
Washington and Hugh Jackman.
And it was just, you know, to be there this year
with Christian Bale, Viggo Mortensen and Rami Malek,
you know, and to be a director now,
it's so surreal, Oprah, to be honest.
I mean, it doesn't make any sense.
So I just try to breathe through it, be present for it,
and take all the goodness I can from it.
But that's a great experience in that room,
though, because there's no pressure.
Nobody's going to be announced who's a winner.
- Yes. - So nobody has to lose.
That's right.
The luncheon is so great for that reason, right.
But the truth is it never feel--
you only feel like you're a loser when people
treat you like it afterwards.
[LAUGHTER]
That's the only downside because the award show ends and people
are like they sort of-- first of all,
they avoid you a little bit, and then
they do-- say like, you know, it was a good movie.
[LAUGHTER]
And like, oh, thanks. Thanks.
Thanks. Thanks.
I was surprised, I gotta admit,
that you were not nominated for Best Director.
Oh, thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
OPRAH WINFREY: Were you surprised
by that, disappointed by that, or did
you just take it in stride?
I was not surprised.
You were not!
I'm never surprised about not getting anything.
But I did feel, you know-- and it's funny
you asked because I have thought about this
because I was with my friend, I was
in New York City at a coffee shop
and I looked down on my phone.
And Nicole had texted me, and they
said you know congratulations on these other things.
But they didn't tell me the bad news.
OPRAH WINFREY: Yes. - You know, and I went, oh, wow.
And the first thing I felt was embarrassment actually.
Oh!
BRADLEY COOPER: Well, think about it.
It's a-- I felt embarrassed that I didn't do my part.
I'll work on that.
It'll be, you know--
[LAUGHTER]
But that was the first--
OPRAH WINFREY: I was-- well, I'm glad you said that.
BRADLEY COOPER: Think about it. I mean--
But my thing is I would--
I'm at least glad you said that because if I were you,
I would be feeling some kind of way about it.
Yeah, embarrassment.
I went, oh, oh, gosh.
I didn't do my job.
But you know you did.
BRADLEY COOPER: I do. Yes.
OPRAH WINFREY: 'Cause how do you get a nod--
my thing is how do you get nominated for Best Picture
when the director has to direct it
if you aren't a Best Director?
But the truth is even if I got the nomination,
that should not give me any sense
of whether I did my job or not. That's the trick.
OPRAH WINFREY: Yes. - That's the trick.
OPRAH WINFREY: Yes.
BRADLEY COOPER: The trick is to make something that you believe
in and you work hard and then you have the product
and you say, OK--
I remember going-- the first time we ever
showed the movie was at the Venice Film Festival,
and I remember riding in the boat up there.
Really at this stage of my life, I
tend not to get too terrified about things,
and I was really--
I felt-- I was sick.
And I thought, oh, yeah, I really do care
about what people are going to feel because it
was a very personal thing.
It was a very personal thing, this movie.
And I really did show myself in a way
that I thought, oh, wow, this is vulnerable.
And the thing I said to myself was if people don't like it,
whatever they say, please don't let
that stop inspiring you to make art because do
not give that power away.
That's what you were saying to yourself?
- Yes, to myself. - Yes.
But people did like it. - They did like it.
OPRAH WINFREY: Yes.
But it goes back to my answer about the Oscars
is you can't give up that much power to things that really
have nothing to do with why you're creating art
or why you're doing something.
OPRAH WINFREY: And so when you're
in the midst of doing it, you don't lose track of that.
It's only after you come out--
Well there's too much joy.
That's the great thing. OPRAH WINFREY: Yeah.
And you sound joy in everything. - Oh, yes.
Down to what the graphics on the screen
were going to look like. - Everything.
Everything.
Oh, the fact that I had an opportunity to co-write
and direct a movie and see it from an idea in my head
or feel-- inspiration to my soul to showing you this story,
are you kidding me?
That's like praise God.