The first feud of awards season is here and it's between Bradley Cooper and Cillian Murphy.

The best season of all is coming up. 

Nope, not autumn (although we desperately need the temperature to drop), I'm talking about awards season. 

And because we, as a society, thrive on drama, this means that celebrities will be pitted against each other over who claims the most coveted awards. 

This season, it looks like the boys are the ones who are fighting and honestly it is a refreshing departure from women more commonly being positioned as each other's competition.

Bradley Cooper and Cillian Murphy both did this years Variety's Actors on Actors interview series. They didn't do the video together (next year??) but with their respective movie counterparts, Bradley's Aloha co-star Emma Stone and Cillian's Barbenheimer nemesis, Margot Robbie. 

Now in Cillian's interview, the Irishman mostly just talked about his bafflement with memes, as Margot heaped praise on the actor and he sat there sheepishly receiving it. 

But in Bradley's chat, shots were fired. 

Shots fired at Cillian.

Well, maybe. 

But why are these two men even in the same sentence? They are expected to be the overwhelming favourites to win the Academy Award for 'Best Actor' for their roles in Cooper's Maestro and Murphy's Oppenheimer. 

Both actors have been nominated for the Golden Globe for 'Actor in a Drama Motion Picture', which can translate to who is up for the Oscar. 

Now back to the goss. In his Variety interview, Bradly said something about preparing for his Maestro role that some fans have considered an obvious dig at Cillian. 

“I feel like you couldn’t have made Poor Things if you didn’t have a tremendous amount of prep, and it’s the same thing with Maestro,” he told Emma in their chat.

Cooper spent six years developing Maestro, a film about American conductor Leonard Bernstein that he directed, wrote, and starred in.

All good so far, nothing to see here. But then Bradley added this:

"This wasn’t like you got a call, and in six months you’re going to do it,” he said. “This had to have taken years.”

Do you know who did take a mere six months to prepare for his movie? Cillian Murphy. Oop!

Do you think Bradley Cooper was throwing shade at Cillian Murphy for his #Oppenheimer 6 month acting preparation vs his years of prep for Maestro? pic.twitter.com/Ir7xGELC2C

— BLURAYANGEL 🦇 (@blurayangel) December 10, 2023

Murphy has said in a number of interviews that he only had six months to prepare for the role of J. Robert Oppenheimer. 

Does this mean that Cooper has read/watched every interview that his awards season foe has given, waiting with bated breath to throw some extremely subtle and niche shade at Cillian's work ethic?

It's fun to imagine! But probably not. 

Either way, it's pretty obvious that Cillian will probably never know that he has been included in this relatively low-stakes celebrity feud, as the actor is known for his aversion to anything Hollywood and his disconnection from the online world. 

In the Variety interview, Cillian admitted he'd only just learned what a meme was. 

Whether there's any truth to it, people online have decided Bradley and Cillian are beefing. 

Watch Robert Downey Jr act like Cillian Murphy just started acting. Post continues after video. 

And sadly for Bradley Cooper, angry Cillian fans have joked that he's taking shots at the Peaky Blinders actor because of how desperate he is for an Oscar. 

The Star Is Born star has a long history of being snubbed at the Academy Awards. Cooper has been nominated nine times for projects he's worked on as both an actor and director — but he's never won. 

If Cillian wins the Oscar for his praised portrayal of J. Robert Oppenheimer, this will be the first time he has been nominated for an Academy Award. 

But of course, it's not just Bradley and Cillian getting Oscar-buzz for their roles. 

Leonardo DiCaprio's performance in Killers of the Flower Moon is considered his career best, and there's plenty of critical buzz around the performances of Irish actors Andrew Scott and Barry Keoghan. 

If you've seen Barry in Saltburn, then you'll understand why he's a dark horse. If you know, you know!

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Feature image: Getty.

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