There’s a hoodlum on the loose at the Sundance Film Festival, and his given name is Cradley Booper. On Monday, Page Six reported that a Bradley Cooper doppelgänger was attempting to use his lookalike’s identity to gain entrance to exclusive parties at the annual Park City, Utah hobnob:
We’re told the doppelgänger talked his way into a bash for the film White Girl at Bar 53 at Rock and Reilly’s on Saturday, but organizers “quickly caught on.”
“He said, ‘You’re done for!’ and would not give ID,” said a spy of the “star” when he was confronted by security. “He pushed a button on an iPhone and had a picture of The Hangover as his screensaver.”
So, his plan wasn’t airtight—but who could have known that fancy actor types don’t use screenshots from their films as party identification? “You’re done for” certainly sounds like the kind of thing a celebrity would yell if his identity were in question. Booper would not be deterred: People found a source who claimed the impersonator tried his hand at the Morris from America afterparty, too.
Thanks to the expert sleuthing of a Jezebel commenter, the doppelgänger’s face—that of a goofier, wide-eyed, less angular Cooper—has been revealed:
This image confirms what I’d always imagined of Sundance: that it’s full of people wandering around drunk and starry-eyed, so primed to run into a famous face that they’ll post a Snapchat screenshot on Instagram with just about anybody in a beanie.
But if this imposter isn’t Bradley Cooper, who is he, and what is he doing at the festival? There are two likely options. He could be a Park City townie who’s tried every year since Wedding Crashers to get into the swanky parties like a kid with a fake I.D., poor thing. Or, he’s a cocky out-of-towner who’s been growing some stubble and aging alongside Cooper, saving up for a plane ticket and waiting patiently until their forms aligned enough for him to just about pass. Dim-lit, snowy, besweatered Sundance would be the perfect spot for such a con, out of the spotlight of L.A. where club security can easily separate celebrities from the rest of us.
The real Bradley Cooper has no films at Sundance this year, and he performed at an Arthur Miller Foundation event in New York City on Monday night, so he’s not around to give his impersonator a stern talking-to or warn the who’s-who of the identity theft in progress. Booper may have a bright future in fantasy videos or D-grade spoofs co-starring Leonardo DiCaprio’s doppelgänger, a Swedish bartender who’s never abused his God-given powers à la Booper. That may be his best shot at stardom. Park City bouncers might buy the beard-and-beanie act, but the Illuminati’s a much tougher sell.
