Spotlight on the Stars: Bradley Cooper

First of all, Happy Holidays everyone. For this week’s new spotlight piece, I wanted to cite a modern A-lister who also happens to have some classical charm to him. It’s Bradley Cooper, a newly minted leading man who’s continuing to impress the more we get to see from him. He was once considered a pretty boy of sorts, someone you’d never expect to be an Oscar favorite, but in the span of less than a decade, he’s gone from a lightweight to an absolute A-list star, one who’s now considered basically due for an Academy Award. As such, he’s more than a perfect candidate for the spotlight today. Cooper got his start mostly on television (though he did appear in the film Wet Hot American Summer), showing up in things like Sex and the City, where he made his debut. There were also parts on a few different versions of Law & Order as well as on short lived shows such as Jack & Bobby and Kitchen Confidential, though he really broke through with the series Alias. There were other movie parts, like The Comebacks, Failure to Launch, The Midnight Meat Train, New York I Love You, The Rocker, Wedding Crashers, and Yes Man, but that spy show opposite Jennifer Garner really set him up to be a star. He had parts in misfires All About Steve and Case 39, but that same year he also became a future A-lister with his part in the massive success that was The Hangover. That comedy was a huge hit, paving the way for Cooper to get a chance to branch out and explore his talents a bit. Initially, it didn’t go too well, with The A-Team and Valentine’s Day underwhelming, but Limitless proved he could be a leading man, while The Hangover 2 cemented that franchise’s bankability, and in turn…his. He took that industry sway and began to essay the second act of his career. The Words was an attempt at straight drama, while Hit and Run had him steal scenes in a comedy he didn’t lead. They were set up though for what would be the last few years, when he dominated Hollywood. Cooper not only changed a lot of minds about him with David O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook, he also scored his first Academy Award nomination. The citation in Best Actor really let people know that he was something special, which Cooper [...]