The Oscars race is almost over, but it's been an uphill battle for months. Winning the highest honor in the world of cinema, especially in its most famous categories like acting, goes far beyond just a good performance. Behind this is a whole, month-long campaign with publicists, agents, managers, stylists, photographers, the press… through which the actors try to convey a comprehensible image. They go to television shows or award shows and do interviews and activities that sometimes surprise or go beyond the usual. This is the case of Bradley Cooper, who sat down for a podcast to talk about his personal life, his house or his daughter, who he said was difficult for him to love, until Girl He hadn't been able to bond with her for eight months.
Confessions like these put the candidate, in this case Cooper, in the spotlight and make the public and academics think and think about him again. In this case, the Maestro actor and director decided to speak on Armchair Expert, the podcast that actor, comedian and host Dax Shepard has been running for five years. Both have been old and very good friends for almost 20 years; In their speech, Cooper himself admits that they have “a strong connection,” while Shepard explains that they feel like they have been “friends since childhood.” Together with actress Kristen Bell (Shepard's then-girlfriend and current wife; they are parents of two girls), they starred in the 2012 film Explosive Breakout, which Shepard also directed and wrote the screenplay. Therefore, the 49-year-old Cooper was particularly open in his lecture. And among other things, he explained how important it is for him to be a father. He has a daughter, Lea de Seine, with model Irina Shayk, whom he dated from 2015 to 2020. The little girl will soon be seven years old and has already made a few film appearances: she is starring in her father's latest film, more precisely, his daughter, Leonard Bernstein's daughter as a child (as an adult she is played by Maya Hawke, precisely the daughter of Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke). So the little girl accompanied him to the film's premiere at the Hollywood Film Academy Museum on December 12th.
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But in an unusual confession, the actor has admitted that love for his daughter wasn't something that came automatically when she arrived into the world in March 2017. “The first eight months… The truth is that I didn't even know. “If he wanted the girl,” he admitted to Shepard, remembering how he had experienced that moment. “It's amazing, very cool. I watch it all unfold and suddenly my experience is total. Fascinated by everything. I'm happy to take care of her. “But would I die if someone came in with a gun?” he ponders. “It’s only been a few months! I could be a complete idiot! And then suddenly there is no longer any doubt.”
Your impressions are completely different now. He admits that he and Shayk were “shocked” when the little girl started talking and articulating words and her own language, and that the little girl also reminded him a lot of his father, who died of cancer in January 2011: “There are moments when she's just like him… I think I watch too many movies,” he laughs. But seriously: he admits that the little girl changed his life: “I'm not sure if I would be alive if I wasn't a father. I just needed someone to tell me, “Let's drop this huge anchor.” And I asked, “Why?” Let's go full speed! “I just got the boat up to speed and I know which way the wind is coming from.” And she: “No, no, no, there's a tsunami coming, you need an anchor and we'll throw it out.” Because this will control everything you do from now on. “Your DNA will tell you that there is something more important than you.”
That's why he now wants to spend as much time with her as possible and have lots of conversations with her. He realizes that he thinks a lot about the relationship between them. “I think a lot about how my relationship with my daughter will impact her growth and personal journey,” he recalls. “He'll be seven in March, and you know what my relationship was like with my father,” Cooper tells Shepard. “I didn't spend too much time with him. I think I've spent more hours with my daughter than I did with my father in his entire life. Crazy”.
Shepard jokes among friends about their family routines and assures that his daughters are not ashamed to talk to him when he is in the toilet, to spend time with him and to invade his privacy. “You're 30 centimeters away from me, it's terrible! “Is the same thing happening to you with Lea?” he asks. Cooper laughs and explains what his New York home looks like, where everything is connected: “My bedroom with the bed, the bathroom and the bathtub are in the same room. It's 24 hours, seven days, friend. There are no doors, the stairs go up and everything is on one floor,” he says. Neither he nor his daughter cares: “We talk when I’m in the toilet, she’s in the bath, that’s all,” he laughs, a completely different upbringing than the one he experienced. “I don't think I'd ever seen my dad use the toilet in my life until he got sick.” However, he admits that he inherited from him a tendency to run around the house naked, something he's come to terms with. “completely” comfortable and that was also very useful for him during some filming.