Bradley Cooper Tried to Walk Away From ‘Place Beyond the Pines’ Because He Might Have Been Scared

In 2013, Bradley Cooper starred as a police officer in one of his most critically acclaimed films Place Beyond the Pines. But the movie’s content might have initially discouraged Cooper from taking the part.

How Bradley Cooper was first cast in ‘Place Beyond the Pines’

The Hangover was a crucial part in making Cooper the megastar he is today. To date, it’s one of Cooper’s most successful films, enjoying both critical and financial acclaim. But it also nearly stopped him from scoring a starring role in another well-received feature.

Cooper has occasionally had some directors underestimate his acting abilities, or even question his personality due to his performances. He once had a difficult time breaking away from his image as a nice guy with no edge due to his Alias character for instance. This theme would reappear again when he was considered for the movie Place Beyond the Pines. The movie was directed by filmmaker Derek Cianfrance, who initially only saw Cooper in The Hangover.

“I met with a lot of great actors and someone that I was going to meet with was Bradley Cooper,” Cianfrance once recalled to IndieWire. “I was like, ‘Who? The guy from The Hangover? They’re like, ‘Yeah, he’s actually a very good actor.’ I was like ‘Well, maybe he is, but I doubt he’s going to be in this movie,’ but I said, ‘I’ll meet with him, I’ll meet with anyone.'”

But after meeting Cooper, he was as sold as anyone else on Cooper for the role.

“As I talked to him I realized that he was my brother,” Cianfrance remembered. “That he was dealing with a lot of the things that I was dealing with as a man and I thought: ‘Wow, couldn’t I make a movie with thus guy?'”

Bradley Cooper initially tried to walk away from ‘Place Beyond the Pines’ because he might have been scared

Cianfrance would eventually agree to hire the actor as the cop in Pines. So much so he was willing to modify the script a bit to fit Cooper more.

“Why don’t I rewrite the character for him and really make it about the misperception of someone that on the outside he’s the hero? On the outside he’s the Sexiest Man Alive but on the inside there’s a corruption happening,” Cianfrance said.

But soon their roles would reverse. Whereas Cianfrance was all on board with Cooper, Cooper second-guessed his involvement in the project. Cianfrance theorized that Cooper’s reaction to the film came out of fear.

“So I rewrote it and gave it to him and there was resistance from him, he was a little scared of it I think. But I related to that in an actor too. I don’t relate to the idea of no fear,” Cianfrance added.

The director, however, wouldn’t give up on the actor even when Cooper didn’t want to do the feature anymore.

“But he tried to get out of it actually and I said, ‘Where are you?’ He said, ‘I’m up in Montreal shooting The Words,’ I said, ‘Okay, it takes me about 5 hours to drive there from Brooklyn, I’ll see you tonight, be there about 11,'” he remembered.

How Bradley Cooper was convinced to do ‘Place Beyond the Pines’

In a 2013 interview with Yahoo, Cooper went into a little more detail about how Cianfrance persuaded him to do Pines. Cooper confided that he hated the way the character was written when the script was first brought to him. But Cianfrance’s passion eventually wore him down.

“He was relentless,” Cooper said about Cianfrance. “And he was good to his word, too. He said, ‘Look, we’re going to change him. We’re going to make him more human and less stock.’ And he did that. I said, ‘Okay, I trust you.’ So we did it.”

Starring in the film was a decision Cooper was glad he made in the end. Cianfrance promised Cooper his Pines role would be a “profound experience,” and Cooper quickly discovered that to be the case.