(Warner Bros.)
American Sniper has sparked a lot of conversation based on Michael Moore’s “cowards” tweet, the movie’s record box office, and its six Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actor (Bradley Cooper), but the new topic that everyone’s currently buzzing about is the film’s “fake baby.” In one scene with Cooper and his onscreen wife Sienna Miller, the couple passes their baby back-and-forth, but it’s a plastic doll, and audiences and critics alike are taking director Clint Eastwood to task for it.
Grantland’s movie critic tweeted, “That plastic baby in American Sniper is going to be rationalized by [Clint] Eastwood auteur cultists until the end of days.” And the film reviewer for the Las Vegas Informer felt the movie could have been “peerless” if Eastwood had left out the “glaring fake babies. How about that fake breastfeeding scene?” There have been reports of audiences members chuckling at the fake baby, and some moviegoers have also taken to Twitter to mock the bogus baby. One guy tweeted, “Halloween ’15 idea: the obviously fake baby in American Sniper.”
On Tuesday’s “Today Show,” Savannah Guthrie said she felt Cooper deserved his Best Actor nomination because “he had to act opposite a fake baby.” Her colleagues also jokingly chimed in that perhaps the fake baby deserved an Oscar nod, as well (video below).
So what happened? Why would an Oscar-winning director like Eastwood use a fake baby on a multi-million dollar movie? The film’s screenwriter and executive producer explained on Twitter, “Hate to ruin the fun but real baby #1 showed up with a fever. Real baby #2 was no show. (Clint voice) Gimme the doll, kid.” Maybe they should have looked for baby #3. What did you think when you saw the baby in the film?
