Bradley Cooper: Why You Can't Achieve Greatness With Just Talent!

How you doing, Mr. De Niro? My name is Bradley Cooper. My question is regarding Awakenings. And I remember thinking, if this doesn't work, maybe I'm not right for this business, I thought. You know, people talk about, oh, you need a vacation or something. I don't— a vacation from what? And I think that if you love what you do, isn't it hard to be an asshole? I don't know. I mean— He's one of the highest-paid actors in the world and has been nominated for 4 Academy Awards. His breakthrough came in 2009 with his film The Hangover. Time magazine named him in 2015 one of the 100 most influential people in the world. He's Bradley Cooper, and here's my take on his top 10 rules for success. Rule number 4 is my personal favorite, and I'm curious to figure out which one you guys like the best. Also, as Bradley's talking, if he says something that really, really resonates with you, please leave it in the comments below and put quotes around it so other people can be inspired as well. Enjoy. You want to go for a ride on my horse? From a one-time role on Sex and the City— You know what, I got to go home. No way, I'm not letting you out. My shirt didn't have enough ice cream on it. —to his recurring one on Aliens, bit parts in movies. But it all changed 6 years ago through a night the 4 of us will never forget with The Hangover. How does one go from The Hangover movies to these very serious impart dark characters in some way? Well, I don't see any difference at all. Huh? I don't. I mean, Phil, Phil Winnick to me was a real character that wasn't me. Mm, Tracy, it's Phil. Phil, where the hell are you guys? And Todd Phillips is an auteur director, and Zach Galifianakis and Ed Helms are as good as Christian Bale and Jeremy Renner. I mean, those guys are serious gangster actors. I mean, they are no joke, and you got to bring it hard every time you're with them. So I actually see it as the same thing. How you doing, Mr. De Niro? My name My question is regarding awakenings. I wanted desperately to ask a question. I was terrified. And I wanted to ask this specific random question about awakenings. And right before it came to my— because you have to say before that you want to, and they pass you the mic. So I thought, oh, this is going to be a stupid question, and he's going to say, why would you ask that stupid question? And so I thought, I'll just ask some bullshit question about the mission and riding a horse. And then somebody went up and asked a question about the mission right before my question. I thought, "Oh, no." And the next thing I know, it's my turn. I'm standing up and I'm looking at my idol across, you know, 40, 30 feet away. And then I just asked the question that I wanted to about awakenings. And he said, "Good question." And it, like, blew me away. And I thought— it was just a little reminder of, like, you know what, just go with your gut, you know? There's a reason why you think the way you do and want to do the things you do. And you just can't let anybody tell you don't do it. But especially you. Don't allow you to tell you not to do it. You know, the loudest voice that's a contrarian is usually me. And all these little moments of confirmation that that voice should just shut up allows you to just do what you're supposed to do while you're here. Between those things, you also went to Broadway with Julia Roberts, with Paul Rudd, "Three Days of Rain." That must have been pretty special. Yeah, it was a do-or-die moment for me, actually. I think Kitchen Confidential had gotten canceled, you know, and I remember thinking, if this doesn't work, maybe I'm not right for this business, I thought. I thought that— there are moments in life when you think, like, you know what, it kind of does matter if this fails, or you fail in it. And it was hard. It was one of the— it was the hardest thing I've ever been through by far. And I remember thinking, if I can get through this, it may be as hard, but it's impossible for it to be harder. And it's true. And I've had a lot of hard times since, and more jobs, you know, when you're like, wow, the pressure's so intense. But it always— I have such a foundation from 3 Days of Rain. I was gonna say, 8 shows a week, right? Not even that. Actually, it was the rehearsal process, not the do. Once we got on stage, it flew. And thank God. And I thought, oh, this feels right. But it was a, you know, and I was hard on myself, you know, but it was just, man, it was tough. The Elephant Man has been a huge success, smashing attendance records and winning Cooper excellent reviews from Broadway's toughest critics for a role that's been part of his consciousness for decades. At age 12, he decided he wanted to be an actor after watching the movie version. It tells the story of John Merrick, a horribly deformed British man with a saintly soul who's rescued from a 19th century freak show and given sanctuary at a London hospital. 28 years later, Cooper has produced, cast, and arranged the financing for the current Broadway production. You play John Merrick. Yeah. Without any makeup, without any prosthesis. Mm-hmm. Just you, Bradley Cooper. Yeah. And you have to convince the audience that you're him. Yeah. How do you do that? By believing I'm him. That's how I do it. If I'm acting like I'm him or I don't quite make that leap of faith, There's absolutely no way you're gonna believe it. I had to do a tremendous amount of work to get to a place where I do believe I'm him. Part of the work was 20 years of research, and part of it a performance unlike he's ever given. The transformation from Cooper to Merrick is shared by the audience in one of the early scenes. As the doctor is speaking to the pathological society, which actually is the audience of the play, and you see an actual photograph of Joseph Merrick, he is then describing all of his afflictions. From the upper jaw, the projected added another mass of bone. And then I then interpret each one in a physical manner. The right hand was large and clumsy, a fin or paddle rather than a hand. Almost mimicry, almost like a mime. To add a further burden to his trouble, the wretched man, when a boy, developed hip disease which left him permanently lame so that he could only walk with a stick. And Once he's finished with that presentation, I'm fully physically transformed, but the soul hasn't been injected yet. He brings the cane over, steps away, and then says, "Please." Please. And that's the first time you hear Marek alive. That is the moment where the transformation occurs. And if I don't make that leap at that moment, the rest of the play is not going to work. Absolutely, I try to find different things for no other reason than to further explore. You know, I have no desire to repeat anything, and I want to constantly learn. Now, I'm in a situation where I'm very lucky right now, and it won't last forever. It may not last another year, but to be really at a place where, you know, it's not just about, you know— because for a while, it was just, I just got to get a job. And now, for as long as it lasts, it's like, wow, able to read a book like American Sniper, and then try to produce it, and go to a director like Clint Eastwood. I mean, these are things that if you told me that as a young actor in grad school, you've got to be joking. But that said, I remember being on Alias, and I was playing this character who was only good, it felt like. And I remember feeling like I gotta play something else and really being so grateful that I got the role in "Wedding Crashers" where he was so diametrically opposed to that character. And I thought early on, like, don't, you know, really keep trying to go here and here. And I used to, I always remember Willem Dafoe came to our school and talked about how he only takes roles that scare him. And I remember thinking, roles that scare him, roles that he thinks he can't do. And I thought like, oh, well, I think I would only wanna do things that I thought I could do. And it was interesting that I used to think that. And now it's more like things that scare me. I mean, Chris Kyle, if you told me I could have played him, I didn't. Even when we were developing, I thought, well, I'll just develop the material and tell the studio that I'll play him, but really I won't play him. I'll get another actor who I thought would have been perfect for it. Honestly, yeah. And Phil with "The Hangover," it was funny that you mentioned that, because we were saying that I saw it last night. And I was telling my friend, I thought, Looking at that guy then, I was so the opposite of that guy because I was gonna give up the business. I was doing a play at Williamstown and I thought, I just can't, it's not gonna be, it's not gonna happen because I knew that I only wanted to really be in the middle of storytelling. I really wanted, I love making a movie. I don't love just acting, but I love the whole thing. And then Todd Phillips called me and said, or emailed me and said, let's do this, bitches. And then we were filming it and And Phil's like this very confident guy, and I was at a point in my life where I wouldn't say, and I'm with these massive juggernaut comedians who are crushing it, and for Phil to come off the way he did, I remember that I felt like that was like, I don't know how that happened, 'cause I wasn't in that place. So I always feel like that I try to do things that don't come easy, but that only happened later. People talk about, oh, you need a vacation or something. A vacation from what? I love my life. I feel, I'm healthy, thank God, I have these incredible directors that are interested in working with me, and I'm going to jump at that as long as there's enough time to prep and I feel like I can add to it. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Has it changed in terms— I guess there's a point where you don't have to chase quite as hard. You know, it depends on the project. I still chase. I wrote an email to a director about 6 months ago about a project that I just felt so connected to and never got a response. That's surprising. Yeah, but you know, you never, you know, it's, yeah. You just think professional courtesy would be enough to— Oh, not in this business. Do you have a career idea in your head, or do you have a mindset about your— No, I mean, yeah, I do. My mindset is so simple. I just want to get better. I want to get better, and I want to work with great people. It's really simple. Do you want to be pushed in new directions all the time, or are you— I don't want to be pushed. I think I push myself. So I have a pretty strong engine of wanting to grow. So, no one— although David is a good example, I didn't think I could do that role, and he— there was an example of a director saying, just walk with me, you know. And we're going to do another movie together in the spring where he's— it's the same thing. It's a difficult character. I had the opportunity to play one of your background nurses on American Sniper. We were in Wood in the hospital, and you spoke to us. You were so nice, and I remember meeting you. You were, you know, you greeted us, and I was like, oh my God, he's such an A-list actor, principal, and he's so nice to us back then. So my question is, how do you stay so nice? Well, you know, I think the question perplexes me at the root. And maybe that's why, is because why wouldn't I be? Do you— Yeah, but I mean, but I don't know. But I mean, like, you're a human being. We're all on set together trying to tell the story. To me, it's always very clear. And that's the real truth. Everything else is this sort of artificial branding or ladder sort of work. But I don't know what that means. But you know what I'm saying. So I don't know. I just— I'm always happy to see another human being on a set that we're going to tell a story together with. I mean, and maybe it's because I love what I do. I absolutely love it. You know, and I think that if you love what you do, isn't it hard to be an asshole? I don't know. I mean, and I'm also grateful. It's like, it's not lost on me that to be able to do this, you know, we're lucky. We're so lucky. So do you have no ego about seeing yourself on the screen at this point? No. In a positive way. I mean, in a negative way. No, no, well, actually— People have a hard time watching themselves a lot of times. Well, no, I don't have a hard time at all watching myself for the honesty of the moment as an actor. Actor, like seeing if that's bullshit or that's working or not. I could totally do that, I think, objectively. Don't ask me to tell you what I look like on screen. What I've managed to do is divorce myself from the utter shock of how— because I do, in my initial thing right away I go, "How do I make a living? Is this a joke?" I really do. I look at the way I look. I mean, I don't know if most people— but that's just the way I feel. But at least I've divorced myself from that. Do you know what I mean? I'm like, "Okay, that's—" I don't even think about that anymore, so, and then I just focus on the work. Had you worked with De Niro before this film anywhere? No. Had you met him anywhere? Oh gosh, well, on the show I met him, and then I had a whole long history that he wasn't aware of, that I auditioned for a movie, I put myself on tape for a movie to play his son, and my mother played him, and he actually saw the tape and called me in to meet him. Oh, that's nice. Yeah, that was, and I was a mess, and I couldn't believe it, I sat down and he just said, he didn't say much, he just said, yeah, I see it, I see you, I see it. Okay. Yeah, I mean, but I've worked with some, I mean, Owen Wilson, it's like you can't, you know, Dane Ringgold, I loved Hall Pass. What a great movie. Jason Sudeikis, what a funny character. Let me ask you, there was a rumor going around that I believed that a lot of people in the business believed that President Clinton was in The Hangover 2. I was reading it in the trades. They were saying he's going to have a cameo in The Hangover 2. You know, how was that started, that rumor? The real is we were in Bangkok. Clinton was there with his fund giving a speech. So Zach and Todd and I went to see him speak, and then they said, hey, do you want to have dinner with the Oh my God, that'd be great. So then we had dinner with him, and he was late, and I just happened to be lucky I was sitting next to the empty chair. Yeah. And you know what's so crazy? The first thing he says when he walks out, he's like, "All I want to know is, is there going to be an A-Team 2, and can I be in it?" And literally, this is what I thought. Are you messing with me, man? Yeah, yeah. I get you had underperformed. You don't have to embarrass me in front of the table. But he did, he meant it. No, he meant it. You do impressions as well, Bradley, don't you? Sometimes if you want me to talk, I just, whatever comes into my head, I'll say. I don't know when or what it's gonna be. Is that your mom? No. Principal Walker, by the way. Thank you guys so much for watching. I made this video because Bradleygirl999 asked me to. So if there's a famous entrepreneur that you want me to profile next, just leave it in the comments below and I'll see what I can do. I'd also love to know what did he say that had the biggest impact on you? What message meant the most to you? Please leave it in the comments below and I'm gonna join in the discussion. I also want to give a quick shout out to Roger Pierce and his cartoon Sully Startup. He made a cartoon strip about me and my one word, the book signing, and I really appreciate that, Roger. Feeling the love, man. Thank you for the support. So thank you guys again for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is. Much love. I'll see you soon.