The coffee will be brewing early today in the Los Angeles home of "Crazy Heart" director Scott Cooper; his wife, Jocelyne; and their daughters, ages 6 and 3.

"My wife is going to be up at 5:15 with coffee because we want to support Jeff, should he and T Bone get nominated [for Oscars]," the director-writer said last week over lunch at the Renaissance Hotel on a publicity swing through Pittsburgh.

Jeff Bridges stars in "Crazy Heart" as washed-up country singer Bad Blake, and T Bone Burnett contributed original songs written with the late Stephen Bruton.

"I may never be in this position again, so I'm certainly going to be up and watch with bated breath and hope we aren't disappointed," said Mr. Cooper, who happened to be wearing his lucky bucking bronco belt buckle.

However, he hastened to add, "We're already winners whether we get nominated or not." Besides, he asks, "How do you compare a Warhol to a Pollock?"

Or a Bridges to a George Clooney? Or a Colin Firth? Or a Morgan Freeman? Or a Jeremy Renner, all likely Best Actor nominees?

Today at 5:30 a.m. West Coast time, actress Anne Hathaway and Tom Sherak, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, will announce the key nominations on television.

With 10 slots to fill for Best Picture, "Crazy Heart" could slip in alongside front-runners such as "Avatar," "The Hurt Locker," "Up in the Air" and "Precious."

No matter how many nominations "Crazy Heart" scores, this awards season has been a triumph for the actor turned first-time director and screenwriter (who doesn't even own a tuxedo) who made a movie for $7 million in 24 days and three states.

Mr. Cooper, a Virginia-born bluegrass and country fan who cut his teeth listening to Bill Monroe, Ralph Stanley, Doc Watson, the Highwaymen and Townes Van Zandt, originally wanted to make a picture about Merle Haggard.

He is the hard-livin' country stalwart who was 9 when his father died, hopped his first freight train by 10 and landed in San Quentin by 20. Mr. Cooper couldn't get the rights to Mr. Haggard's life story but did option the rights to Thomas Cobb's novel "Crazy Heart," which a friend had passed along.

"I turned to this novel and was able then to fictionalize the life of Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, Billy Joe Shaver. ... I felt like I could then take elements of all their lives and create this Bad Blake character."

Mr. Bridges plays Bad Blake, a broken-down country singer whose shirt collar is frayed, who totes his own amp and drives a beat-up '78 Suburban. He's a man who used to play Nashville's Ryman Auditorium and the Opry and now is performing in a bowling alley.

His life changes when he meets a single mother and writer played by Maggie Gyllenhaal.

"It's a love story, and it's a personal journey that this man takes and an artistic and spiritual reawakening," says Mr. Cooper, who first optioned the book four or five years ago.

Mr. Cooper is now being flooded with offers to direct studio films, but many people passed on "Crazy Heart" because it was "too dark" or "it's country music" or "too small."

Today, though, he says, "I've had lots of people who aren't country fans tell me how much they really like the music because it's one part traditional country music, which is very different than what's coming out today, one part Mississippi Delta blues and one part Texas roadhouse."

And it's all Mr. Bridges, who won a Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild award for his portrayal. Musicians such as Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson and Dwight Yoakam have given it their stamp of approval and one unnamed performer put his hand to his heart and told Mr. Cooper: "That hit me real good."

Mr. Bridges initially said no because there was no music attached to the script -- unaware that Mr. Cooper wanted the lead to shape the music. "He ran into T Bone, who's an old friend of his from 'Heaven's Gate,' and T Bone explained that this is what I wanted and he said, 'Well, T Bone, if you're in, I'm in.' "

Mr. Cooper, who wrote Bad Blake with Mr. Bridges in mind, calls it the "perfect confluence of the right actor in the right role."

He ticks off a list of reasons why Mr. Bridges was perfect: "His range as an actor. His versatility. His physicality reminded me of Kris Kristofferson and Waylon Jennings, and he also has recorded professionally with Michael McDonald the great Doobie Brother and he's a 'good picker' as we say down South. A good guitarist."

Mr. Cooper calls Robert Duvall, here doubling as actor and producer, the "patron saint of this project." The pair met in 2001 while making "Gods and Generals," starring Mr. Duvall as Robert E. Lee, and the older actor became a friend, mentor and even hosted Mr. Cooper's wedding on his Virginia farm.

"Any time you put Robert Duvall's name on a script as a producer or as actor, you can bet that it gets to the top of the list of anybody who's considering backing or acting in the film."

In fact, when Mr. Cooper needed a large crowd for a key scene later in the film, Mr. Duvall reached out to Toby Keith, who allowed the filmmaker to shoot between his set and that of Montgomery Gentry at Albuquerque's outdoor amphitheater. "I had about 10 minutes to shoot all of that in front of 12,000 people."

Mr. Cooper, whose English teacher-turned-businessman father studied with William Faulkner at the University of Virginia, had to take the Nobel Prize winner's advice about "killing your darlings" when editing the film.

In his case, it was a scene with Mr. Bridges and a young actor as the son he hasn't seen in two dozen years. "It's marvelously acted. It's a very uncomfortable scene, but it didn't advance the narrative," so it was cut but will turn up on the DVD.

Although Mr. Cooper relied on names such as Bridges, Duvall and Gyllenhaal, he hired a lot of non-actors. "I wanted this movie to feel like it was cast by Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans. I was casting faces."

He found the little boy who plays Ms. Gyllenhaal's son in a restaurant. He asked, "Have you ever been in a movie? Do you want to be in one?" and when child said no to both, he knew he was onto something.

An actor with a fondness for indie and European films, Mr. Cooper wanted the movie to evoke the 1970s releases by filmmakers he admired such as Terence Malick, Peter Bogdanovich, Hal Ashby and Robert Altman. "I wanted it to have a lyrical quality, a more poetic quality, a more languid pace like the great country songs," by someone like a George Jones.

"So that was my approach, and as Duvall and Merle Haggard would both say independently of one another, just tell the truth."

Mr. Cooper, who has been fielding questions in audience sessions on his barnstorming tour, has learned: "Everybody has a Bad Blake in their life, it seems like. Not a singer but people who have either been touched by alcoholism, understand the suffering that goes along with that. Self-medication, one way or another.

"And people have all experienced these themes that I mentioned -- hope and regret, loss and redemption. And it really, really moves them."

This morning, he'll find out how many of those people are Oscar voters.

on the web

Look for coverage of the Oscar nominations at post-gazette.com/movies today and in Wednesday's Magazine section.

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