Bradley Cooper playing Bernstein? No one should be wearing a big fake nose when portraying a Jewish man

Leonard Bernstein was a queer Jewish man who is being played by a straight white Christian actor, writes Adam Lenson. What were the casting directors thinking?

Carey Mulligan and Bradley Cooper in the upcoming – and now controversial – Netflix film ‘Maestro’ (Jason McDonald/Netflix)

As a Jewish theatre director, I have spent a lot of the past few years considering good practice and ethics in the casting of Jewish characters in theatre, TV and film. It is a complex knot to untangle and a moving target.

While I personally do not believe that all Jewish characters always have to be played by Jewish actors, I think we can agree that in 2023 no one should be wearing a big fake nose when portraying a Jewish man. Especially when that actor is not Jewish. Even more especially when the prosthetic nose in question is significantly bigger than the actual nose that the actual Jewish person being portrayed had.

It seems evident that to play Leonard Bernstein, Bradley Cooper is jumping on the Oscar-bait bandwagon of using make-up to alter his normatively handsome, symmetrical appearance in order to foreground a sense of visible transformation – often a shortcut intended to indicate “real acting”. But doing so also represents a decision to emphasise a facial feature long associated with negative and antisemitic depictions of Jewish people. As I’ve said, the prosthetics don’t realistically portray the nose of Bernstein, but instead overemphasise this key feature. It may stop Cooper from looking like Cooper but it doesn’t to my eye make him look more like Bernstein.

Conversations about identity in casting and fighting for marginalised representation always bring out the “acting is acting” commenters. I would say that if acting is acting, why does Cooper require a big fake nose? Isn’t Carey Mulligan a good enough scene partner? Equally, I would say that where possible, acting is enhanced when it is grounded in lived experience or cultural knowledge. Of course, I am not saying that “only murderers should play murderers”, I am saying that if it doesn’t hurt other people, then performances tend to be more well-rounded when they come from those with a fuller experiential set of tools to play with.

While I do not believe that all Jewish characters have to be played by Jewish actors (something I feel the need to repeat as it is often misrepresented in print media about this subject), I believe that we must draw the line at antisemitic portrayals of Jewish characters by non-Jewish actors. Overplayed accents and physical ticks do tend to approach the border of unacceptability for me, but a big fake nose truly does go too far. In fact, exaggerated noses are a key part of Nazi and fascist propaganda used to stereotype Jewish people.

I will add that there is something special about watching a performance by someone who truly possesses a character. There is a kind of inexplicable glow that comes from watching someone who actually lit Shabbat candles growing up, lighting Shabbat candles on screen or on stage. Yes, acting is indeed acting, but there is very little that approximates the truthfulness of an embodied, lived experience – particularly when attached to a marginalised identity that is often misrepresented or erased. Even the best actors have trouble with that ineffable standard.

We have noticed for years the trend of key Jewish roles being played by non-Jewish actors. This means that we are not seeing the emotional pay-off that comes from an actor embodying a role with a degree of lived truthfulness. In an era of heightened awareness around questions of identity and representation, there has been rightful advocacy to ensure that marginalised stories include cast and creatives who understand.

I will also add that while I do believe non-Jewish actors are capable of playing Jews, it is dispiriting to watch the vast majority of Jewish roles played by non-Jewish actors. We have had to witness a parade of non-Jewish actors with overplayed accents and gestures, and high-tension shoulders as people play “Jewish” rather than simply being Jewish.

In recent years alone, we have watched the casting of non-Jewish actors in the roles of: Steven Spielberg’s parents, Carole King, Golda Meir, Robert Oppenheimer, Albert Einstein and Adam Neumann. Not to mention fictional Jewish roles like Midge Maisel, Marc Spector in Moon Knight and Harley Quinn, who are also played by non-Jewish actors. (It’s worth noting that these are mostly conditionally white, Ashkenazi Jewish roles and that there are more nuanced conversations to have about Jewishness, whiteness, and other Jewish diasporas). But we are being left out of our stories more often than I would like.

While I tend to favour meaningful inclusion throughout a team and cast rather than insisting on Jewish casting of all Jewish roles, I do think there is something unpalatable about Cooper playing the role of Bernstein. Bernstein was a queer Jewish man who is being played by a straight white Christian actor. Once again, an opportunity to give a more appropriate actor a chance to play that role has been missed.

I am currently at the Edinburgh Fringe acting in a piece of theatre that I have also written. The piece is extremely Jewish. Not because of any outsized acting choices or caricatured make-up or prosthetics, but because it simply is and because I am. I didn’t need a fake nose and nor should anyone else.

Adam Lenson is a freelance theatre director based in London. He is currently in Edinburgh at the fringe performing a solo show called Anything That We Wanted To Be