Is This Thing On? nearly had a random Dave Attell set in the middle of it

Bradley Cooper says he was so transfixed with the comedian's set that he briefly considered putting a chunk of it in his latest movie.

By Drew Gillis  |  October 10, 2025 | 6:11pm
Film News Is This Thing On?
Is This Thing On? nearly had a random Dave Attell set in the middle of it

Is This Thing On?, the third directorial effort from Bradley Cooper, follows Will Arnett as Alex Novak, a man on the verge of divorce who stumbles into a comedy club and discovers he has something of a knack for it, Midge Maisel style. And like the marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Alex rubs shoulders with his comedy contemporaries in Greenwich Village, which includes comics like Sam Jay and downtown fixture Dave Attell. To hear Cooper tell it, he was so transfixed with Attell’s comedy that they ended up with a good amount of footage of him performing, which had basically nothing to do with the rest of the movie. 

Cooper shared the anecdote during a press conference today at the New York Film Festival, where he was joined by Arnett, Laura Dern, Andra Day, and Christine Ebersole. The director spent a good amount of the conference emphasizing how much of the film was shot on location in New York, including at the famous Comedy Cellar, where Attell consistently performs. In one scene, he takes the stage after Alex’s set, and “he was so funny that I just kept shooting him,” Cooper recalled. “And then early on I was working on the editing of the movie, there’s like 2 and a half minutes of just Dave Attell set and I was like, I don’t know. It’s New York! You gotta see—trust me, it works.” 

“There’s this whole bit about a guy making him a Subway sandwich and asking the guy to take the gloves off,” Arnett added. “He’s like, ‘Raw dog me that sandwich,’ and we’re like, ‘Oh, this is a great bit, but…” Cooper concurred: “It killed me to get rid of it.”

Is This Thing On? premieres tonight at the New York Film Festival and opens wide on December 19.

 
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