Bradley Cooper as Tom Buchanan in 'Great Gatsby'?

Courtesy of Optic Photos, PacificCoastNews.com

Hell no hell no

Bradley Cooper might be in the new Great Gatsby movie! Oh, say it ain't so. There are lots of sexy actors who would look fabulous in '20s suits and be able to convey a certain period elegance, and Bradley Cooper is not one of them.

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Bradley Cooper wants the part of Tom Buchanan, who's married to Daisy, Gatsby's long-lost love. I'll give him this much: he plays a detestable jerk marvelously.

"To me, he's the best character in the book. He's so complicated," the actor said in an interview with The New York Times (via PopEater).

"He's xenophobic, he's an alcoholic, but he also understands some profound stuff about class. Whoever plays it has to take a gentle hand, because it could so easily be stock, where he's a rich jerk you don't identify with at all."

Tom Buchanan is NOT the best character in the book, by any means. There's the narrator, Nick, who brings the tragic elements of the book home, and there's Gatsby, who's doomed, and then there is sad, sad Daisy torn between lover and husband. Tom is busy having an affair (prior to Daisy's, mind you) and being racist. That's about it. You know that Bradley was just fishing for a part.

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Well, even if Bradley Cooper gets the part, it can't be worse than Tobey Maguire being cast as Nick Carraway, the midwestern transplant with some good connections and actual morals. I do not want to hear Tobey's scratchy voice narrating this... but at least I'll have Leonardo-DiCaprio-as-Gatsby to watch. That is so yummy, almost as yummy as vintage Robert Redford.