The movie Bradley Cooper couldn’t stop “crying to”
Versatility seems to be the name of the game when it comes to the latest and greatest contemporary actors, with such successful names as Timothée Chalamet, Emma Stone and Barry Keoghan being known for their effortless ability to transition from one genre to the next. However, one actor who has long thrived in boasting such versatility is Bradley Cooper, the nine-time Oscar nominee who has covered everything from awards contenders to million-dollar superhero flicks.
Rising to success at the turn of the new millennium, Cooper started his success in the realm of comedy, taking a role in the cult favourite genre flick Wet Hot American Summer alongside such names as Paul Rudd, Amy Poehler and Elizabeth Banks. Not the instant catapult to fame he had hoped for, Cooper spent the following years peddling a number of TV series before Wedding Crashers came along in 2005.
While Wet Hot American Summer was a mere indie comedy created on a shoestring budget, Wedding Crashers was a proper Hollywood production that starred some of the industry’s biggest names at the time, Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn. “I remember Owen Wilson went on [Charlie Rose] to promote Wedding Crashers and he mentions my name,” Cooper recalled to GQ, “I couldn’t f***ing believe it”.
Ever since, Cooper’s career has been fairly plain sailing, starring in the blockbuster comedy The Hangover in 2009 before becoming an action hero with The A-Team in 2010 and an awards contender with Silver Linings Playbook in 2012. Despite his varied career, most modern audiences will know him not for his physical appearance but as the voice of Rocket Racoon in Marvel’s popular Guardians of the Galaxy series.
Still, considering his upbringing, where he was surrounded by a great diversity of cinema, his love for varied roles shouldn’t come off as a surprise. Living opposite a cinema in his youth, Cooper was encouraged to go to the cinema by his father, a loyal film lover, but was broken by one particular movie he brought home, David Lynch’s The Elephant Man.
Starring John Hurt and Anthony Hopkins, Lynch’s harrowing movie told the true story of Joseph Merrick, a deformed man who lived in London in the 19th century and was tormented by abuse during his life. Nominated for eight Academy Awards, Lynch lost out on a coveted award for ‘Best Picture’ in favour of Robert Redford’s Ordinary People, a quality drama that is undoubtedly less celebrated than Lynch’s classic.
Indeed, The Elephant Man was the film that encouraged Cooper into the industry, yet it was also a movie he found incredibly hard to finish and rewatch, telling GQ that he couldn’t “stop watching or crying to” the classic movie.
Check out the trailer for Lynch’s heartbreaking drama below.
