Bradley Cooper plays sniper Chris Kyle in “American Sniper.” Upon its release, Clint Eastwood’s film raised many questions and several controversies, including one related to the use of a plastic baby in a strange scene.
american sniper : Bradley Cooper metamorphosed
After looking at the life of J. Edgar Hoover, then that of Frankie Valli, Clint Eastwood is interested in another American figure. The filmmaker traces the journey of Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper), a Navy SEALs sniper celebrated for its surgical precision during the war in Iraq. While he leaves a high number of victims, he finds himself with another sniper on his heels, responsible for eliminating him at all costs. Upon his return to the United States, Kyle fails to reintegrate into society. Suffering from post-traumatic stress, he increasingly worries his wife Taya (Sienna Miller).
Released in 2015, american sniper stands out as Clint Eastwood’s biggest financial success behind the camera, garnering more than $547 million in worldwide revenue. The feature film also arouses controversy linked to questions about its ideological positioning, both about the intervention in Iraq and the supposed glorification of Chris Kyle. The drama also becomes the laughing stock of the Web because of a scene deemed ridiculous.
“I could not believe it”
In this sequence, Taya and Chris Kyle discuss. The soldier then comes to pick up their baby in the arms of his companion. The moment he sits down, it’s easy to guess thatthis is a plastic infant, which provoked the hilarity, or the anger, of some Internet users at the time of the film’s release. On Twitter, we can read in particular:
american sniper is a great movie, but they could have taken a real baby in one of the scenes.
Invited on the set of Ellen DeGeneres in October 2015, Bradley Cooper returns to this controversy with the American host. The actor reveals that he did not expect to have to use a doll, to have to raise his thumb to give the impression that she is moving her arm, and especially to that these takes are found as they are in the feature film. The actor explains:
I really couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe we were working with a plastic baby, (…) I was like, “This is crazy!”
With the team ofamerican sniper, Bradley Cooper jokes that he saves $100,000 in budget by moving the kid’s arm himself, chewing up the work of the special effects technicians. Faced with Ellen DeGeneres, he adds with humor:
I must say that I have come to love this doll very much. I fell in love with this plastic thing.
A strange sequence to (re)discover below:
