Bradley Cooper

Bradley Cooper is an American actor, filmmaker, and producer born on January 5, 1975, in Abington Township, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia, where he grew up in the communities of Jenkintown and Rydal. His mother, Gloria, worked at KYW-TV, Philadelphia's NBC affiliate at the time, and his father, Charles, was a stockbroker at Merrill Lynch. Cooper's father was of Irish descent and his mother of Italian ancestry, with roots in Abruzzo and Naples. He was raised Catholic and has an older sister, Holly. From an early age, his father introduced him to films including The Elephant Man, a work that would later prove significant to his stage career.

Cooper attended Germantown Academy, where he worked at the Philadelphia Daily News, before graduating high school in 1993. He spent one year at Villanova University before transferring to Georgetown University, where he majored in English, minored in French, rowed with the Georgetown Hoyas crew team, and performed with the Nomadic Theatre. He graduated in 1997 with a Bachelor of Arts with honors. During his time at Georgetown, he became fluent in French and spent six months as an exchange student in Aix-en-Provence, France. In 2000, he enrolled in the Master of Fine Arts program at the Actors Studio Drama School at The New School in New York City, where he trained with coach Elizabeth Kemp and was selected for the program by James Lipton. He received his MFA in acting that same year, working as a doorman at the Morgans Hotel in New York City while completing his studies.

Cooper made his television debut in 1999 with a guest appearance on Sex and the City. He subsequently served as a presenter on the tourism series Globe Trekker in 2000 and had a recurring role in the short-lived series The Street. His film debut came with the ensemble comedy Wet Hot American Summer in 2001, in which he played Ben, a camp counselor. He went on to play Will Tippin, a newspaper reporter and central character in the television series Alias from 2001 to 2006, before landing a supporting role in the comedy Wedding Crashers in 2005, playing the antagonistic Sack Lodge opposite Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn, and Rachel McAdams. That film carried a production budget of $40 million and grossed over $285 million worldwide.

Cooper's breakthrough in film came with the comedy The Hangover in 2009, which spawned sequels in 2011 and 2013. His career continued to expand with starring roles in Limitless in 2011 and The Place Beyond the Pines in 2012. He received Academy Award nominations for his performances in Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle, American Sniper, A Star Is Born, and Maestro, accumulating twelve Academy Award nominations in total. For A Star Is Born in 2018, which he also produced, wrote, and directed, he won a British Academy Film Award and two Grammy Awards, including recognition for the film's Billboard Hot 100 chart-topping single "Shallow" and its number one Billboard 200 soundtrack. He received a third Grammy Award for his contributions to the soundtrack. Cooper has also voiced the character Rocket across six films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, beginning with Guardians of the Galaxy in 2014, and has produced the thrillers Joker in 2019 and Nightmare Alley in 2021. His films have grossed $13 billion worldwide, and he has appeared on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list three times and on Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2015.

On Broadway, Cooper appeared in Three Days of Rain and later starred as Joseph Merrick in a revival of The Elephant Man, with his Broadway credits spanning 2006 to 2014. His performance in The Elephant Man earned him a Tony Award nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play in 2015, as well as a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Actor in a Play that same year. The role held personal significance: his father had introduced him to the story of The Elephant Man during his childhood, and his parents' initial reservations about his acting career shifted after they saw him perform an excerpt from the play as Joseph Merrick. Cooper was briefly married to actress Jennifer Esposito and has a daughter from his relationship with model Irina Shayk. He supports several charities focused on fighting cancer. In 2011, he was named People magazine's Sexiest Man Alive.