Bradley Cooper Once Told David O. Russell He Was Really Unhappy When He Made ‘Wedding Crashers’
Bradley Cooper impressed many with his performance in the 2005 film Wedding Crashers. Perhaps one of the reasons why his acting stood out in the film was because he pulled from real-life frustrations for the role.
‘Wedding Crashers’ changed Bradley Cooper’s reputation in the film industry
Before Wedding Crashers, Cooper used to have trouble getting certain film roles because of preconceived notions about him. Back then, Cooper was known for starring in the Jennifer Garner series Alias. But being on the show soon turned to be a difficult time for the actor. Alias once gave the impression to many in the film industry that he was perhaps too nice of a person. This was an impression that would later work against Cooper’s favor.
Fortunately, Wedding Crashers would help change this perception of him. But the 2005 comedy would soon present another problem.
“That’s the crazy thing about this business,” Cooper once said on Inside the Actor’s Studio (via Ok). “On Alias, I played the nicest guy in the world and then I would try to audition for movies after that and the feedback was like ‘Wow, Bradley’s such a nice guy,’ ‘Yeah, I don’t really see him in that part,’ and after Wedding Crashers, ‘Bradley? Yeah, he’s an asshole.'”
Bradley Cooper once told David O. Russell he was unhappy when he filmed ‘Wedding Crashers’
One of the movies Wedding Crashers helped Cooper earn was his starring role in the film Silver Linings Playbook. The movie would see Cooper teaming up with Jennifer Lawrence in the David O. Russell directed feature. The anger that Cooper conveyed in Crashers helped convince Russell that Cooper was a good fit for the project.
“I knew when I met Bradley after Wedding Crashers, he seemed like a palpably angry person to me. A scary angry person. So I knew that was good for Silver Linings Playbook because it wasn’t fake, it wasn’t nice, it was just intense,” Russell once said in an interview with IndieWire.
What further sold Russell on Cooper was that the actor’s anger stemmed from a real place.
“Then when I met him I asked him about that. His answer told me that he could do this role because his answer was very self-revealing,” Russell added. “His answer was that he had been unhappy at the time when he made Wedding Crashers. His life was not as fulfilled. He was 30 to 40 lbs. heavier like the character in the movie, he was hiding behind it, but really he was scared. So already you’re getting so much depth and it’s very much in the world of the character so that’s all — he’s a very open, emotional guy.”
Bradley Cooper once joked he could’ve played roles like his ‘Wedding Crashers’ character for a decade
The same thing that happened to Cooper with Alias seemed to happen to the actor with Wedding Crashers. Except this time he was offered roles that were very similar to the bully he played in the Owen Wilson comedy. But Cooper didn’t want to be typecast as a particular character, so he rejected those offers.
“I had just done a movie called He’s Just Not That Into You and I had hosted Saturday Night Live but all that was coming my way back then were roles which were rehashes of the guy I played in Wedding Crashers – I could have played that same part for the next ten years. I never did it again. So I had nothing going on. Not really,” Cooper once said in an interview with GQ.
Things changed once again for the actor, however, when he was offered another major role in Tod Philips’ Hangover. Cooper had auditioned for the role once before, but the studio and Phillips weren’t sure about him in the lead role. Eventually, Hangover was shelved for a bit, and Cooper would forget about the project. Sometime later Cooper would then receive an unexpected e-mail from Philips indicating that the project was back on.
“Last time I saw Todd, we both went to see There Will Be Blood and I never heard from him again. So I just thought that movie called The Hangover wasn’t happening, or at least not with me in it. So I rang him and was like, ‘Todd what are you talking about?’ He said, ‘It’s on. The Hangover. We’re going to do it,'” Cooper recalled.
The Hangover film proved to be a success, spawning two sequels and further expanding Cooper’s reach in Hollywood.
