Can non-Jewish actors play Jewish roles? Yes.

In my work as a film critic, I’m sometimes asked how I best determine whether a movie is good or not. I usually answer that my criteria are somewhere between my gut feeling of whether I liked it and a more dispassionate analysis of whether the filmmakers accomplished what they set out to do.

But most important, it’s crucial that I’ve actually seen the movie in question.

I thought about that at the end of May, when the first photos were released from Maestro, the biopic of composer Leonard Bernstein. Jenkintown’s own Bradley Cooper is the star, the director, and the co-writer, and it appears that he will play Bernstein over a large section of his life.

And based on that handful of photos from the movie, it seems quite a lot of people have developed very strong opinions about Maestro.

» READ MORE: Bradley Cooper liked to air-conduct as a kid. Now he’s channeling Leonard Bernstein at the Philadelphia Orchestra

The photos have caused a stir for a few reasons: That Cooper looks unrecognizable, that it seems he could be a shoo-in at the Oscars, and most controversial of all, that Cooper is a non-Jewish (and non-gay) actor who is portraying a real-life figure who was both Jewish and gay.

Beyond the substance of those charges, I find it sort of disconcerting that, based on just a few photos, so many people are judging and coming to conclusions about a movie that is early on in production and, for all practical purposes, does not exist yet (the film is likely to arrive in 2023). This is often even worse with superhero and “Star Wars” movies, in which something in the teaser trailer will lead to fanboys’ heads exploding a year before they actually see the movie.

But whether it’s a prestige movie or a popcorn blockbuster, the right time to judge a movie is when that movie is released and you actually see it.

“The right time to judge a movie is when that movie is released and you actually see it.”

Is it wrong for the non-Jewish Cooper to portray the Jewish Bernstein? This type of casting, sometimes denounced as “Jewface,” has become a very fraught subject of late in Jewish spaces, especially after a series of instances of prominent female roles being cast with non-Jewish actresses (such as Felicity Jones playing Ruth Bader Ginsburg in On the Basis of Sex and Kathryn Hahn playing Joan Rivers in a since-shelved project).

I am myself Jewish, I have a fine appreciation for Jewish-oriented film, and I certainly see representation as an important thing. But in cases like this, I tend to err on the side of allowing actors to be actors, and for a religious test to not be placed on movie casting. What is acting, after all, if not using your talents to play someone very different from yourself?

Creating a norm in which non-Jewish actors can’t play Jewish characters would have robbed us of all sorts of fantastic performances throughout cinema history, including numerous roles played by the likes of John Turturro (Miller’s Crossing, Barton Fink, Quiz Show) and several cast members on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, including Rachel Brosnahan and Tony Shalhoub.

Cooper, in the photos, isn’t wearing a big nose to make a caricature of Jewish people — he’s doing it to look like Leonard Bernstein. And while most people below a certain age probably aren’t that familiar with what Bernstein, who died in 1990, looked like, the photos are reasonably accurate.

Bradley Cooper is not Jewish. He’s also not gay, not a classical composer, not a prolific sniper, not an alcoholic singer-songwriter in love with Lady Gaga, not a mentally ill Delco native who competes in a dance contest while the Eagles are playing, and not a groomsman who misplaced his friend during a bachelor weekend in Vegas. But the fact that he was believable as all of those things is an indication of his talent as an actor.

The question of whether Bradley Cooper is qualified to play Leonard Bernstein, and whether he is believable as playing this man who was Jewish, gay, and much older than he is now, is one that will be answered when we see the actual performance, and not before.

Stephen Silver is a journalist and film critic who lives in Delaware County. He is working on a book about the history of Jewish-oriented American films.