Carey Mulligan Doesn’t Know What A Cheesesteak Is

Bradley Cooper may be the new King of Cheesesteaks — but his Maestro co-star Carey Mulligan doesn’t even know what that is. At the Maestro premiere on Dec. 12, Entertainment Tonight asked Cooper, the film’s director, about opening a pop-up cheesesteak truck in New York just days prior. However, Mulligan was a little confused about the exact premise of a Philly cheesesteak.

“Can I just — what is a cheesesteak?” she asked. “Like is it steak? Cheese on steak?”

Being a Philadelphia native, Cooper gave her the recipe without judgment. “Well, it’s like a homemade bread number one,” he replied. “You know, hollowed out, sliced rib eye, Cooper sharp cheese, caramelized onions.”

Naturally, Mulligan was intrigued. “You’re really selling it to me,” she replied. “Yeah. I made 600 of them the other day,” he quipped.

Why She Hasn’t Had A Cheesesteak

Understandably, Mulligan wasn’t entirely familiar with the art of the cheesesteak, given that she’s a British native and her director didn’t show off his cooking skills on the Maestro set. “No, I’ve heard about this, but I’ve had no physical evidence yet,” Mulligan said of the cheesesteaks.

In defense, Cooper said he didn’t make any food on set because it wouldn’t have made sense for the biopic’s central character, composer Leonard Bernstein. “No, Lenny didn't make cheesesteaks,” he replied. “Lenny didn’t even cook at all.” “No, he didn’t” Mulligan agreed.

“He just smoked and waited to be fed.”

Cooper’s Food Truck

Cooper opened the pop-up food truck in New York’s Greenwich Village with Danny DiGiampietro, owner of Philadelphia’s Angelo's Pizzeria, calling it Danny & Coop’s Cheesesteaks and donating proceeds to “help feed New Yorkers in need.”

“We just talked about doing a food truck and maybe opening up a cheesesteak place in New York," Cooper told ET. “So we decided to spend two days and make cheesesteaks for people.”

Celebrities who visited Cooper to support his new venture included Laura Dern, his ex-girlfriend Irina Shayk, and rumored girlfriend Gigi Hadid. But he kept mum on their opinions of his food. “I don’t know, you got to ask them,” he said, adding that a cheesesteak order is “very personal.”