A-list star’s jaw-dropping transformation in new movie

He has one of the most recognisable faces in the world, but this Oscar nominee has undergone a major physical change in his latest Netflix role.

Fans are doing a double take after images of Hollywood hunk Bradley Cooper were released from an upcoming Netflix film.

The Oscar nominee, 47, transformed into famed American conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein for the biopic Maestro, and appears unrecognisable in pictures straight from the movie’s set, New York Post reports.

Cooper will play Bernstein over a 30-year span from his youth until his death at age 72. (Bernstein died in 1990 of a heart attack caused by progressive lung failure.)

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Cooper is unrecognisable in the role. Picture: Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images

In character as the famed composer Leonard Bernstein. Picture: Netflix

In one of the promotional images, the American Hustle star is seen channelling the late West Side Story composer in a retro-looking suit alongside his co-star Carey Mulligan.

Supplied Bradley Cooper in new film Maestro. Picture: Netflix

He then appears completely different in scenes from later on in Bernstein’s life with a head of white hair, a heavier physique, and age-enhancing prosthetics.

Maestro has been filming in recent months and is expected to be released in 2023, according to Deadline.

American composer Leonard Bernstein. Picture: Jean Pimentel/Kipa/Sygma/Getty

Leonard Bernstein and Barbra Streisand in 1968. Picture: Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection/Getty

Cooper co-wrote the script with Oscar-winning scribe Josh Singer of Spotlight.

Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg produced the biopic.

In January, Cooper revealed on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert that he was “obsessed” with conducting as a child and spent “hundreds of hours” practising it.

“Steven Spielberg knew that,” he said, also noting that the award-winning director asked him to play Bernstein and then eventually to direct the film after seeing Cooper’s work on A Star Is Born.

This article originally appeared in the New York Post and was reproduced with permission