Bradley Cooper talks about his nudity scene in “Nightmare Alley”, a film noir by Guillermo del Toro which marks the first collaboration between the actor and the director.
Released this Wednesday, January 19 in our cinemas, Nightmare Alley marks a turning point in the career of Guillermo del Toro: by adapting the homonymous novel by William Lindsay Gresham, which had already served as the basis for The Charlatan in 1947, the director signs a pure film noir , relieved of any supernatural element.
All with a four-star cast that includes some newcomers to its universe. Including Bradley Cooper, who will obviously remember this first collaboration, because it notably required him to appear naked as a worm, the time of a scene where he gives the reply to Toni Collette from his bathtub. And maybe more.
On arrival, a “full frontal” that the main interested party deems “important”, since it was the first of his career. “I remember reading this passage [dans le scénario] and told myself that [mon personnage] was a hoodlum marinating in his tub”, he says in the show The Business from KCRW. “It served the story. So I had to do it.”
“And I still remember that day when I spent six hours naked in front of the technical team, for Toni Collette’s first day of filming. I thought it was difficult.” But not to the point of wanting to backtrack: “There was nothing gratuitous about this scene. It served the story.”
The Walt Disney Pictures
Bradley Cooper, man in the bath at Guillermo del Toro
Also led by Rooney Mara, Cate Blanchett or Willem Dafoe, this story first takes us to a carnival, where Stanton Carlisle (Bradley Cooper) is going to learn about mentalism before leaving for New York and exercising his talents within high society. And try to rip off a man as powerful as he is dangerous.