Most moviegoers will remember Bradley Cooper as the jackass boyfriend in Wedding Crashers, the jackass husband in He’s Just Not That Into You or as Jim Carrey’s stalwart best friend in Yes Man. But this summer, Cooper finally steps into the front lines as the star of The Hangover. Opening in theaters June 5, The Hangover is a crazy, Old School-esque comedy that follows three men as they retrace their steps after a blacked-out night in Las Vegas. Cooper spoke to North by Northwestern during a round table interview about shooting in Vegas, playing the alpha male and his crazy role on Nip/Tuck.
What was the most enjoyable part about working on the movie?
Probably just being around Todd Phillips [the director]. He’s a pretty cool guy. And being around him and Zach (Galifianakis) and Ed (Helms). Shooting in Vegas was hard. We were in Caesar’s Palace for a month and a half, that was pretty crazy. A month and a half is [when] you go past the point of no return.
Was working on this movie more fun than Wedding Crashers?
It was different, totally different. But I liked it because I was able to be a bigger part of the movie. So that was cool, to be creatively [involved], to be really telling the story in a more thorough way. But Wedding Crashers was amazing too, but that was my first really big studio movie, so that was great for so many reasons. I was a lot younger, crazier then. And being around Owen (Wilson) and Vince (Vaughn) was great. And (Christopher) Walken, I mean that was amazing. [...] He was the best, he was insane. I actually got to become buddies with him. He was very open, available. But this movie, I got to say, this was the best thing I’ve ever been involved with.
In most of your roles, even if you have a smaller part like in Wedding Crashers, everybody remembers you. Do you feel like that’s close to your personality at all?
(laughs) No, not at all. But obviously it’s somewhere in there. It came out.
How was the chemistry with the other guys off set?
We became friends. It felt like we did a war movie together. I mean, we get the shit kicked out of each other in this movie, and it was like being in the trenches together. So we actually, Ed and I, went to Zach’s farm for New Years, and we actually are buddies now. I love those guys.
So did you guys do any partying while you were in Vegas?
The thing about it is, how are you going to one-up what you just did. You come from set where you were like, there’s an Asian naked guy on your neck. And then there’s the tiger. You know, so what are you going to do, go to a bar and get drunk? Is that going to be crazy? You couldn’t surpass what we filmed. So it was pretty much just resting, a lot of sleeping between. We were doing 16-hour days, six days a week in Vegas, and we shot a lot at night too. So you know, getting up at like three in the morning to go to work, it was weird hours.
The show Nip/Tuck has gone miles in different directions, how did you get into your role on that show?
That was crazy, right? A lot of that was improvised, I mean a lot of that. Which is awesome for a TV show to let that happen, I’ve never experienced that on a TV show, ever. That kind of latitude they would give me to do. I love that character — Ryan Murphy and I just came up with that guy, what would it be like if a 15-year-old who has way too much access, you know. And he’s just fucking out of his mind, he just wants to devour and he’s so insecure at the same time. Yeah, that was a ball, I would do a hundred more of them.
What is the difference in difficulty between shooting television and film?
It’s pretty much the same. I mean, it’s the same concept. The only difference is that in a TV show, it’s more of a machine. You’re shooting more pages in a day than in a movie. And also, on a network show, there’s no end, you don’t really know where the story’s going. Where film is, you have beginning, middle, end, you shoot it and it comes out later, which I prefer. It’s a more sort of encapsulized creative process. Where, in TV, you’re beholden to the network and what they want to do, depending on how the viewers see your character, stuff like that.
The photos in the end credits are pretty outrageous, how did you go about taking those?
We took them during the movie. Which was smart — every place we shot, Todd would take us off and we’d do stuff. We shot in the strip club, and we’d also take random people off the street and ask them to do crazy shit. And they’d do it, which you’ll see in this film.
Were there any injuries from all the crazy stunts you guys had to do?
Yeah, we were pretty sore, we got banged up. No irreparable damage, but we got banged up pretty bad.
I heard a lot the script was largely improvised. How did you fit improvisation into such a complex plot?
That’s a good question. It’s a lot of filler, in the parts of the script where we’d, say, [have] three guys wait for the car to come up in the valet and there’s no dialogue. In that scene, I’m getting a ticket, Zach’s talking about Coffee Bean and where he picks up kids, he’s putting blue blockers on the baby. So all that stuff is filler that sort of brings everything to life. So that’s how it works it’s way in.
What was the most challenging part about this role?
Well he’s the leader, and I think there’s a sort of energy you need to have as the sort of leader of the group, keeping the ship together before it falls apart. So I think just being able to play that sort of alpha male for the whole movie was challenging, I didn’t know if I could do it. And then I sort of realized that I was just playing Todd Phillips, so it was easy, I just mimicked him.
On set, do you have any sort of day-to-day routine you use to prepare?
It’d be so cool if I had one, but no. It mainly consists of trying to get something to eat, I’ll try to actually do something physical before. But it’s so run and gun, you sort of enter into the movie and then you come out the other side. There is no day, it’s like the whole thing. Once you start the movie, you sort of get into that black hole, and you don’t come out until it’s over. [...] [We went] four days in Vegas, didn’t see day light, that’s crazy.