Bradley Cooper

Bradley Charles Cooper (born January 5, 1975) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is the recipient of various accolades, including a British Academy Film Award and three Grammy Awards. In addition, he has been nominated for twelve Academy Awards, six Golden Globe Awards, and a Tony Award. Cooper appeared on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list three times and on Time's list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2015. His films have grossed $13 billion worldwide, and he has been placed in annual rankings of the world's highest-paid actors four times.

Cooper began his television and film career in 1999 with a guest role in the television series Sex and the City. In 2000, he enrolled in the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) program at the Actors Studio. Shortly after, he made his film debut with a role in the comedy Wet Hot American Summer (2001), followed by roles as Will Tippin in the television series Alias (2001–2006) and a supporting part in the comedy film Wedding Crashers (2005). Cooper's breakthrough came with the comedy The Hangover (2009), which also spawned sequels in 2011 and 2013. His career progressed with starring roles in Limitless (2011) and The Place Beyond the Pines (2012).

Cooper earned Academy Award nominations for his work in the romantic comedy Silver Linings Playbook (2012), the crime film American Hustle (2013), the war biopic American Sniper (2014), the musical romance A Star Is Born (2018), and the biographical drama Maestro (2023). For A Star Is Born, which he also produced, wrote, and directed, he won a BAFTA Award and two Grammys for his contributions to the film's U.S. Billboard 200 number one soundtrack and its Billboard Hot 100 chart-topping single "Shallow". He gained further recognition for voicing Rocket across six films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, beginning with Guardians of the Galaxy (2014). He has since produced the thrillers Joker (2019) and Nightmare Alley (2021).

On stage, Cooper portrayed Joseph Merrick in a Broadway revival of The Elephant Man. Cooper was named People magazine's Sexiest Man Alive in 2011. He supports several charities that help fight cancer. Cooper was briefly married to actress Jennifer Esposito and has a daughter from his relationship with model Irina Shayk.

Early life

Cooper was born on January 5, 1975, in Abington Township, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia, and grew up in the nearby communities of Jenkintown and Rydal. His mother, Gloria (née Campano), worked at KYW-TV, which was then Philadelphia's NBC affiliate. His father, Charles Cooper, worked as a stockbroker for Merrill Lynch. Cooper's father was of Irish descent, while his mother is of Italian ancestry (from Abruzzo and Naples). He was raised Catholic. He has an older sister, Holly. He had cholesteatoma in his ear soon after his birth and punctured his eardrum when he started diving at an early age.

Describing himself as a child, Cooper has said: "I never lived the life of 'Oh, you're so good-looking'. People thought I was a girl when I was little, because I looked like a girl – maybe because my mother would keep my hair really long." He excelled at basketball and enjoyed cooking: "I used to have buddies come over after kindergarten and I'd cook them food. I prided myself in taking whatever was in the fridge and turning it into lasagna." He initially wanted to attend Valley Forge Military Academy and move to Japan to become a ninja. At an early age, his father introduced him to films like The Elephant Man, which inspired him to be an actor. Coming from a family of non-actors, Cooper says his parents initially wanted him to pursue a career in finance and were against acting, but they eventually changed their perceptions when they saw Cooper play the part of Joseph Merrick in an excerpt from the play The Elephant Man.

While attending Germantown Academy, he worked at the Philadelphia Daily News. He says that in school, he was neither "the smartest person" nor "the coolest kid" and "really didn't have anything going on!" After graduating from high school in 1993, Cooper attended Villanova University for one year before transferring to Georgetown University, where he majored in English and minored in French. Cooper graduated in 1997 with a Bachelor of Arts with honors. He was a member of the Georgetown Hoyas rowing team and acted with Nomadic Theatre. While at Georgetown, Cooper became fluent in French and spent six months as an exchange student in Aix-en-Provence, France. In his television debut, Sex and the City in 1999, he made a brief appearance opposite Sarah Jessica Parker. Cooper later served as a presenter on the tourism series Globe Trekker (2000), which took him to such places as Peru and Croatia, and had a recurring role in the short-lived series The Street.

Cooper had been interested in a career in diplomacy when he auditioned for the master class graduate degree at the Actors Studio and was selected by James Lipton. In 2000, he received an MFA in acting from the Actors Studio Drama School at The New School in New York City. There, he trained with the coach Elizabeth Kemp of whom he says: "I was never able to relax in my life before her." She advised him on many of his films. While studying in New York City, Cooper worked as a doorman at the Morgans Hotel, and briefly interacted with Robert de Niro and Sean Penn in question-and-answer master class sessions, which were later featured episodes of Inside the Actors Studio.

Career

2001–2008: Early roles

Cooper missed his MFA graduation ceremony to film Wet Hot American Summer (2001), an ensemble comedy that marked his cinematic debut. Taking place at a fictional summer camp in 1981, the film had him play Ben, a counselor and the love interest of Michael Ian Black's character. Although the film was critically and commercially unsuccessful, it has since developed a cult following. Cooper reprised the role in the film's prequel Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp (2015), an eight-episode Netflix series.

In the television series Alias (2001–2006), Cooper achieved some success with the role of Will Tippin, a local reporter for a newspaper and the best friend of Jennifer Garner's character, Sydney Bristow. Garner was one of the first people he met in Los Angeles and was, in Cooper's words, "very maternal ... She wanted to take care of me, make sure I was okay all the time." A writer for Complex Networks called his character "arguably the heart of Season 1". As his screen time began to decrease, Cooper grew frustrated. Although he would work only three days, he requested creator J. J. Abrams to write his character off the show.

Shortly after his conversation with Abrams, Cooper tore his Achilles tendon while playing basketball. During his recovery, he considered quitting acting permanently, though in 2004, he was cast in Wedding Crashers (2005). During this period, he acted in the 2002 psychological thriller Changing Lanes. The scenes in which he appeared were edited out of the final cut of the film but are featured on the film's DVD and Blu-ray releases. Other roles included in Bending All the Rules (2002), the short-lived TV series Miss Match (2003), the television film I Want to Marry Ryan Banks (2004), and the WB series Jack & Bobby (2004–2005).

Cooper's career prospects improved with a more prominent role in David Dobkin's comedy Wedding Crashers alongside Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn, and Rachel McAdams. In the film, he played Sack Lodge, the competitive, arrogant, and aggressive boyfriend of Claire (McAdams), a role he described as "kind of a sociopath". Cooper believed the antagonistic character changed people's perception of him, as he had previously played the "nice guy". With a production budget of $40 million, the film grossed over $285 million worldwide. In September 2005, Fox debuted the sitcom Kitchen Confidential, based on a memoir by chef Anthony Bourdain, with Cooper in the leading role. Despite positive reviews for the series, the show was canceled after only four episodes due to low ratings.

In March 2006, Cooper starred as Pip/Theo in Three Days of Rain on Broadway with Julia Roberts and Paul Rudd. This was followed by minor roles in the romantic comedy Failure to Launch (2006) and the satirical comedy The Comebacks (2007). Cooper next appeared in the fifth season of Nip/Tuck (2007) as Aidan Stone, a television star on the fictional show Hearts 'N Scalpels. In 2008, he played the lead in Older than America and appeared in a production of Theresa Rebeck's play The Understudy at the Williamstown Theatre Festival alongside Kristen Johnston. Between his small roles of best friend to the main character in the 2008 comedies Yes Man and The Rocker, Cooper landed the lead role in the Ryuhei Kitamura-directed horror film The Midnight Meat Train (2008), based on Clive Barker's 1984 short story of the same name. Playing the dark character of a freelance photographer who tries to track down a serial killer was a departure from Cooper's previous comedic roles and an experience he found enjoyable. The film received positive reviews from critics, though it earned little at the box office.