Bradley Cooper spent years perfecting his performance (plus writing and directing) in hopes of securing an Oscar for Maestro, but instead, his performance was seemingly overshadowed by his "desperation" to win, and the Oscar for Best Actor instead went to quiet frontrunner Cillian Murphy.

Cooper’s Oscar’s journey actually highlights an interesting conundrum for Hollywood actors: it is very much a part of their job to go out on the awards trail and try to convince everyone that their film – and they specifically – deserve to be rewarded. But, if they get a little too overzealous, it can lead to some pretty intense backlash. (There’s also the flipside that if they don’t promote themselves enough they can essentially get forgotten, passed over again and again even though everyone knows they’re incredibly talented.)

Let's take a look at *why* Bradley got hit with so much backlash, plus take a deeper look at the overall mystery of what it really takes to run an Oscars campaign (and why it’s kind of started turning people off of the Oscars all together...)

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