In August, the first trailer for “Maestro,” a biopic of Leonard Bernstein, the composer of “West Side Story” and many others, caused a backlash almost immediately: Bradley Cooper wore a prosthetic nose for the title role.
Critics on social media accused the star, who is also the director, of playing into an antisemitic trope with a Size XL prosthesis — and questioned whether a Jew would be more sensitive about makeup choices
Cooper and Netflix, where “Maestro” begins streaming Wednesday, declined to comment. In a statement at the time, Bernstein’s three children, who worked with Cooper on the film, came to the actor’s defense, citing the a series of posts on X, “It just so happened that Leonard Bernstein had a beautiful and large nose.” (The family declined to offer further comment.)
This isn’t the first time a massive septum has made an onscreen appearance or courted controversy. Here are 12 of the most memorable fake noses in cinematic history, sorted by size from dainty 🥸 to elephantine 🥸🥸🥸🥸🥸.
Orson Welles, ‘Touch of Evil’ 🥸
Like Edmond Rostand’s poet and swordsman, Cyrano de Bergerac, Orson Welles is obsessed with his nose. (He believe that his is too small; this is, of course, perfectly normal.) But instead of channeling his fixation into a healthy pursuit like, say, helping another man win the affection of his own beloved, he uses twelve -dozens of fakes in his career. One of the biggest was the cruel pair of nose piercings he wore as corrupt police captain Hank Quinlan in the 1958 murder mystery “Touch of Evil.”
Nicole Kidman, ‘The Hours’ 🥸
Nicole Kidman may have delivered a stirring performance as Virginia Woolf in “The Hours” (2002), but Denzel Washington joked that the prosthetic beak she wore won her the best actress Academy Award. (“The Oscar went to, by a nose, Nicole Kidman,” he joke when announcing his win.) Kidman wore a fresh one every day on set, though she told The Associated Press that she hung onto a silver one given to her when shooting wrapped.
Ralph Fiennes, ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2’ 🥸
Is that thing usable? I do not think so; snakes have no noses — only nostrils — and smell with their forked tongues. We wouldn’t be surprised if JK Rowling’s reptilian baddie in this 2011 franchise finale has one of those, too. But at least we might have an answer to what Voldemort’s unnaturally long fingers are good for: Nose.
Meryl Streep, ‘The Iron Lady’ 🥸
Like Kidman, Meryl Streep rode the prosthetic nose she wore to play British prime minister Margaret Thatcher in Phyllida Lloyd’s 2011 biopic to an Oscar win (her third). But this time, the genius of the transformation is in its subtlety — when Streep’s first on-set photos were released, the press didn’t pry their noses.
Laurence Olivier, ‘Richard III’ 🥸🥸
Unlike Welles, Laurence Olivier didn’t habitually wear a fake nose for his roles because of a perceived insecurity as big as his own; rather, it was just one of a range of theatrical accessories, including masks and wigs, that he, and many other actors, used to transform into different characters. In “Richard III” (1955), also directed by Olivier, his character’s nose, as one blogger put it, “majestically prominent.”
Rudolph, ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ 🥸🥸
In the nearby workshop of Santa’s elves in this 1964 special, the best Rudolph’s father, Donner, can do to help his son fit in at school is make a fake nose out of clay? He won’t win any father-of-the-year awards for that effort.
Margaret Hamilton, ‘The Wizard of Oz’ 🥸🥸🥸
Margaret Hamilton came by some of the goods to play the Wicked Witch of the West naturally: She is known for her large nose, which her own father urged to change with surgery. But he got the last laugh when he got the role of the now-iconic villain in “The Wizard of Oz” (1939) – where his nose was even longer (and greener).
Matt Damon, ‘Ocean’s Thirteen’ 🥸🥸🥸
Sure, there are performers with bigger noses on this list, but Matt Damon might just be the one who planned a con around him. In this 2007 sequel, his character, Linus, wore a prosthesis – whom Damon nicknamed “The Brody” in a nod to actor Adrien Brody’s well, you know — in an attempt to disguise himself and gain access to a case full of diamonds.
Steve Carell, ‘Foxcatcher’ 🥸🥸🥸
Steve Carell’s sophisticated schnozz in this 2014 true-crime tale may have left some people scratching his head — the real-life version of his character, John du Pont, the millionaire wrestling-turned-murderer, is unknown, so the attention to detail seems excessive. But the nose served another purpose: It made audiences forget they were staring at Carell, who was known for comedies at the time.
Alec Guinness, ‘Oliver Twist’ 🥸🥸🥸🥸
Charles Dickens wrote Fagin in “Oliver Twist” as a highly antisemitic villain, and in the 1948 film adaptation, Alec Guinness, the non-Jewish actor who played the character, spoke in a droning lisp and appeared hooded. that eye and a massive prosthetic hook. nose The nose is considered “incredibly insensitive,” as The Jewish Chronicle wroteand it caused great anger from Holocaust survivors.
Billy Crystal, ‘The Princess Bride’ 🥸🥸🥸🥸
Billy Crystal was so funny in “The Princess Bride” (1987) that director Rob Reiner said he had to leave the set during Crystal’s scenes as Miracle Max because he couldn’t stop laughing. Adding a bulbous tomato of a nose took Crystal’s physical comedy over the top. (Mandy Patinkin, who played Inigo Montoya, actually bruised his ribs trying to hold back his own laughter.)
Steve Martin, ‘Roxanne’ 🥸🥸🥸🥸🥸
You can land a bird on that thing (which the director, Fred Schepisi did). Steve Martin’s five-inch appendage for the 1987 film took 90 minutes to apply every day and two minutes to remove. “God how I hate that thing,” he told The Washington Post.
