One Statistic Predicts Bradley Cooper Oscar Win

Less than four days from the Academy Awards in Hollywood, polls and ballots and whispers are flying every which direction trying to predict who’s going to take home this year’s trophies.

We’ve got our fingers crossed for Jenkintown native Bradley Cooper, who’s up for the Best Actor prize for his role as sharp-shooting Navy SEAL Chris Kyle in American Sniper. His chances look good. Some voter polls are naming him the winner and, as Time points out, there’s one little statistic that says he’ll more than likely be walking away with that little gold man.

Cooper is the only nominee in the Best Actor category to have been nominated for an Oscar three years in a row. There are only 9 other men and 11 women in the history of the Oscars that this has happened to, and of those 9 men, 8 of them went on to win. “Getting recognition from the Oscars three years in a row will, more often than not, result in Oscar gold,” Time writes. “In all, 16 of the 20 previous three-time nominees won an Oscar, yielding eighty percent odds that Cooper will eventually win based solely on past precedent.”

The key word is eventually. As the article points out:

The wins didn’t always happen right away. This Academy list of multiple consecutive nominees shows that Al Pacino’s consecutive nominations in the 1970s didn’t include his eventual Oscar-winning role in 1992’s Scent of a Woman, nor did Gregory Peck’s run include his victorious role in 1962’s To Kill a Mockingbird.

Cooper was previously nominated for his roles in Silver Lining’s Playbook (2012) and American Hustle (2013). He’s up against some pretty stiff competition, including Michael Keaton and Eddie Redmayne, who have been lauded for their turns in Birdman and The Theory of Everything, respectively.

If Cooper won, it’d be a memorable instance of a dark horse taking the lead. But the historical angle isn’t totally abstract, either: Three years’ worth of nominations clearly indicates that the Academy takes a performer very seriously and that they respond strongly to various aspects of the star’s persona; whatever happens with Cooper this year, it seems evident he’s begun the process of wearing the Academy down. … It’s not hard at all to imagine that a voting body that’s placed him close to the action three years in a row will, sooner or later, give him the prize.

We’ll have to wait and see what happens Sunday, when the Oscars air Sunday on ABC.