The Real Reason Bradley Cooper Was 'Terrified' By His Nightmare Alley Role

 Guillermo Del Toro's long-awaited psychological thriller "Nightmare Alley" is less than a month away, and we're finally starting to get sneak peaks and details about what to expect from the star-studded neo-noir film. Lead actor Bradley Cooper sat down with Deadline recently to give movie fans a quick tour down Del Toro's cinematic rabbit hole and introduce them to the character he plays — and why it left the longtime actor "terrified."

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"All my characters tend to linger, but this one, I have to say, was an especially hard one," revealed Cooper, who plays Stanton "Stan" Carlisle, the same role made famous by Tyrone Power in Edmund Goulding's original "Nightmare Alley" in 1947. Cooper spoke to Deadline alongside Del Toro and producer J. Miles Dale, with each of them discussing the themes and underlying elements of their 2021 remake. 

"This is a case of a movie that spoke very loudly to all of us, and we said, 'It's through Stan that we get to know the world,'" Del Toro explained, noting how the production team wanted to focus on "the revelation of a character" — and how that person faces themselves — rather than "the downfall of a character." It was this exact theme, coupled with internal struggles that Cooper himself had dealt with, that petrified the 46-year-old.