These Photos Of Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper Backstage At The Oscars Will Make Your Day
A Star is Born might not have won the Best Picture Oscar, but its stars did win a whole lot of love from fans everywhere. The "Shallow" duet was the Oscars performance that launched a million memes and made even more hearts melt, as the audience got to soak in the stars' near-tangible chemistry. But, while what the audience saw on stage was amazing, these photos of Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper backstage at the Oscars are even better.
The chemistry between Gaga and Cooper was palpable from the moment they began their performance by quietly rising from their seats in the audience and ascending the stage hand in hand. Gaga sat at the piano while Cooper crooned opposite her, until midway through the song when he joined her on the piano bench. They sang cheek to cheek and ended the song by gazing into each other's eyes. While the couple's duets in the movie are fraught with dramatic tension (it is a movie, after all, and the characters have their fair share of relationship issues), the real-life Oscars duet between Gaga and Cooper was filled with pure warm and fuzzy feelings. It was the Star is Born duet fans were waiting for: one where there's a happy ending. But, the true happy ending happened when Gaga and Cooper walked off stage together and shared some sweet backstage moments.
From very the first notes of "Shallow," all the way to the end of the song, Gaga and Cooper barely broke contact with each other for even a second. That connection continued all the way backstage, where they tightly clutched each other's hands:
According to People, upon exiting the stage, the duo was met with warm applause from the production team. Gaga asked the crowd, "Did I nail it?" She was assured they did, and then she turned to Cooper and said, "I'm so f*cking proud of you!" and cemented she and Cooper's place as the most supportive co-stars of all time.
As they continued backstage, Gaga and Cooper could barely take their hands off each other. In fact, in one shot, they're even mirroring each other's body language (and in my mind talking about how much they love each other, but that's just my fantasy).
Throughout the press tour for A Star is Born, Gaga famously repeated a line: "There can be a hundred people in a room, and 99 don't believe in you, but one does." She was talking about Cooper believing in her enough to cast her in A Star is Born, but she may as well have also been talking about the moment she and Cooper shared backstage at the Oscars.
Even as the production staff hustled and bustled around them, Gaga and Cooper maintained the most intense eye contact ever. Nobody around them could distract Gaga and Cooper from sharing the moment with each other.
Even Gaga herself appeared to be acknowledging their next-level eye contact:
After their time backstage, Gaga and Cooper returned to their seats. But, that wasn't before receiving another round of thunderous applause from the audience.
