Bradley Cooper nearly quit acting after tearing his Achilles tendon
In his late twenties Bradley Cooper was a sidelined supporting player on Alias, recovering from an Achilles tendon torn on a basketball court and wondering whether to give up acting for good. Then came a nasty role in Wedding Crashers, The Hangover, and twelve Academy Award nominations.
Born on January 5, 1975, in Abington Township near Philadelphia, Cooper grew up in Jenkintown and Rydal, the son of a Merrill Lynch stockbroker and a mother who worked at the city's NBC station. As a small boy he wore his hair so long that people took him for a girl. He loved basketball, turned leftover fridge contents into lasagne for his kindergarten friends, and for a while dreamed of military academy and becoming a ninja in Japan. He studied English at Georgetown, rowed for the university and graduated with honours in 1997.
Diplomacy tempted him before James Lipton picked him for the Actors Studio master's programme, where he earned an acting degree in 2000 and worked with coach Elizabeth Kemp, who he said taught him to relax for the first time. He worked as a hotel doorman while studying, and skipped his own graduation to shoot Wet Hot American Summer, a flop that later found a cult following.
On Alias he played Will Tippin, best friend of Jennifer Garner's spy, but grew frustrated as his screen time shrank, and the injury nearly ended his ambitions. Wedding Crashers changed how people saw him: as Sack Lodge, an arrogant, aggressive boyfriend he called kind of a sociopath, he escaped the nice-guy mould, and the $40 million comedy earned over $285 million. His real breakthrough was Todd Phillips's The Hangover in 2009, playing one of three friends waking in Las Vegas with no memory of a bachelor party.
Oscar nominations followed for Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle, American Sniper and Maestro. For A Star Is Born, which he directed, co-wrote and produced as well as starred in, he won a BAFTA and two Grammys, helped by the chart-topping single Shallow. On Broadway he played Joseph Merrick in The Elephant Man. His films have grossed $13 billion worldwide.
Source: Bradley Cooper
