I KISSED BRADLEY COOPER
Oscar-nominated actor gives an aspiring actress a break — and her mom thanks him with a peck on the cheek
The night I kissed Bradley Cooper, it seemed to me he was inmotion, and I grabbed him and gave him a peck on the cheek. Then I said: “I’m Manda’s mom.” The powerhouse actor stopped in his tracks, he really did, and made eye contact. “You did good with this one,” he said, gesturing toward Manda, then melting away.
But as any mother of an aspiring actress knows, this is really the middle of the story. Letme go back.
Growing up on the near southwest side of Houston, Amanda Lea Mas on was always the one in costume, the one who could imitate anybody, the one who was magnetic on stage. She also was the empathetic one, the rebellious one, the one with the bleeding heart.
We thought she might be an actress, but we said it with apprehension. We knew she would be entering a grand profession, but we worried about the potential for poverty and heartbreak.
Soon, Manda hopped from the stage at Bellaire High School to four years of acting at Boston University to a funky apartment in Brooklyn. Shewas hellbent on a life in the theater.
After some successes but more hard knocks, Manda did an apprenticeship at the Williams town Theater Festival in Williamstown, Mass. That’s when she landed small parts in “The Elephant Man,” starring, no joke, Cooper, Patricia Clarkson and Alessandro Nivola.
It was a blissful summer, but it ended. Then Manda was back in New York, babysitting, waiting tables and walking dogs as well as acting. She heard rumors that “The Elephant Man” was going to Broadway, but she didn’t think the producers would go for a no-name, non-Equity actress.
Except they did. On her dad’s birthday, Manda called him to say she’d heard from a well-known casting agent. The man wanted to know if she were free to perform her three small parts in the Broadway production.
The next thing we knew, we and her immensely proud big brother were alternately grazing and stargazing at the opening night party. That’s when I kissed Cooper.
Flash forward to another call. Manda’s voice was full of wonder. Cooper wanted to take the play to London. And everybody in the cast was invited.
My husband is an editor at the Chronicle, a singer with a band called the Blenders, and also a worrier. The stars would get to go, he thought. But not “the kids.” Not Manda.
Wrong. Manda, not to mention the rest of the illustrious cast, has spent the past three months on the London stage. Cooper is a generous soul.
For her, the experience has been indescribably wonderful. But all rainbows fade away. The play closed Saturday night, and Manda, 26, is returning to New York and the never-ending hunt for acting gigs.
Maybe she’ll go back to her old jobs, the ones that give her the most flexibility to audition. Maybe she’ll get lucky and land another part in a play— quickly.
I talked to her last week, and she admitted that she is scared about the future.
I’m scared, too. The art of invisibly parenting 20-somethings is hard, I think, and often I don’t have good answers or even good advice for them.
But here’s what I told her:
The ups and downs she’s experiencing— that’s the life of a real and successful actress.
Also, I quoted amutual friend, one who hushed me when I was worrying about a certain child’s future.
“Don’t be a Jewish mom; be a Buddhist mom,” he said. “Live in the moment.”