T he 91st Academy Awards, held in 2019, were a stressful night for the Calgary-born, Paris-based artist Connor Willumsen. Unlike the anxious hopefuls sweating in Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre, Willumsen was not nominated, nor was anyone he knew. He had just turned in the final draft of his graphic novel Bradley of Him, a surreal tale of either Bradley Cooper or a man convinced he’s Bradley Cooper and his desperate bid for an Oscar. How could Willumsen have predicted that the actor would co-produce, direct, co-write, and star in the third remake of A Star Is Born, which garnered eight Oscar nominations, including three for Cooper?
“If you wanted to make a movie designed to stack up in nominations, you might do a remake of A Star Is Born,” Willumsen says. Worried a Cooper victory might spoil the premise of his book, he emailed his publisher to see if he could change his draft once he submitted it. “She told me, ‘No, you can’t change it. And on top of that, I think it’s almost certain he will win, so you should plan for that.’” When Cooper left the Academy Awards empty handed, the only person more relieved than that year’s best actor, Rami Malek, was Connor Willumsen.
