The Golden Globes are often seen as an indication of where the wind is blowing when it comes to Academy Award nominations and winners. If that’s the case, then things are looking good for Robert Downey Jr., who won the award for Best Supporting Actor for his work in Oppenheimer, and maybe not as good for Bradley Cooper in Maestro, who did not walk away with any awards. On the plus side, Cooper did apparently get a very nice congratulatory text from Rob Lowe.
Appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Rob Lowe revealed that when Downey became a Golden Globe winner, he wanted to congratulate his friend. Downey and Lowe have known each other since high school, so of course he wanted to say something to his friend. Unfortunately, he apparently got some numbers confused, as he accidentally texted Bradley Cooper. Lowe explained…
Downey does this amazing speech at the Golden Globe Awards. So I text him, ‘So glad you won. That is the most beautiful acceptance speech I have heard in a long time. Boy, do you deserve it.’ I hit it and then I realized, ‘Oh shit, I just sent that to Bradley Cooper.’ Who did not win. So then I was like, ‘Oh I gotta make it better.’ So I sent, ‘No, I meant that for Robert Downey Jr.’ Now that’s even worse! Terrible. I inputted the wrong numbers under the wrong names.
It would be one thing if Rob Lowe had accidentally texted just anybody else, but he texted somebody who had been nominated for Golden Globes but did not win. Maestro was nominated for four awards, three of which would have resulted in Bradley Cooper accepting the statue, but the movie was entirely shut out. Even the strongly reviewed performance of Carey Mulligan went unrecognized.
Maybe getting Cooper and Downey confused isn’t that surprising. They’re both among the highest-grossing actors of all time. They both have an MCU pedigree. I have no idea how personally Bradley Cooper took his loss at the Golden Globes, I’m sure it wasn’t that big a deal, but getting a text congratulating him, and then realizing that somebody was going to send that to Robert Downey Jr. instead, probably did sting a bit. It sounds like Cooper took it all in stride. He even responded with a joke when Rob Lowe made the exact same mistake a second time. He continued…
I did it again. I mistakenly sent another one to Bradley. Again! He literally said, ‘No, no, no, it’s fine. I like living vicariously through these mistakes.’
Neither actor has a major project on the 2024 release schedule at this point, but they could easily find themselves competing for awards again down the road. And the current awards season is far from over, so there are plenty more chances for Bradley Cooper to give some fine acceptance speeches. If he does, maybe Rob Lowe will send a nice message of congratulations to Robert Downey Jr.