Why were Republicans so upset that Bradley Cooper attended the Democratic National Convention? As the American Sniper star explained on The Late Late Show Tuesday night, he doesn’t quite get it either.
Cooper, who said he still lives part-time in his childhood home in Philadelphia, told James Corden that he took his mother to hear President Obama speak on night three of the DNC. “It was unbelievable,” he said of Obama’s address. As for the barrage of news stories that came after cameras caught him in the audience, Cooper said, “I was not expecting that.”
“Republicans were up in arms that I was there watching the president speak,” Cooper continued, struggling to figure out why that should be an issue.
Corden’s other guest, Todd Phillips, who directed Cooper in The Hangover films, explained that it was because Cooper played conservative hero Chris Kyle in American Sniper, “which is like the mob being mad at De Niro for being in The Intern.”
“To be there, it was probably one of the last times we’ll hear him speak,” Cooper added of Obama. “I think he was an incredible president. I was really excited.”
Despite his Oscar-nominated role in American Sniper, a rare Hollywood hit among conservatives, Cooper has been a longtime supporter of President Obama and Democrats. Most notably, he has said he played a key role in arranging Obama’s 2014 appearance on Between Two Ferns.
It was during a state dinner at the White House that Cooper called his Hangover co-star Zach Galifianakis to ask him about getting the president on the show. “He thought I was joking, obviously,” Cooper told Howard Stern last year. But when all was said and done, the video got more than 35 million views and was credited with giving Obamacare the sign-up boost it needed.
