Today Bradley Cooper (49) is one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, but of course that wasn’t always the case. As part of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, the actor now remembers his first TV role – a small appearance in the cult series “Sex and the City”. He was terribly afraid at the time, says Cooper. He can still remember the performance in which he played the character “Jake the Downtown Smoker” today.
The actor, who worked as a doorman in a hotel, auditioned for the role, but “I didn’t realize you could ever get the job.” He remembers “being very scared when I got the call to do it. ‘What do you mean, I really have to do this?'”
At the time, Cooper couldn’t drive cars with manual transmissions, but he was supposed to in his role and was therefore sent to a driving school. “And I still messed up,” he jokes. “So they let someone else drive the car and I had to pretend we were stopping.” As scary as the whole thing was at first, it ended up being so much fun and “Sex and the City” star Sarah Jessica Parker (58) was “unbelievable”.
During the film festival, Brad Pitt (60) presented his friend Cooper with the award for best actor of the year in the biopic “Maestro”. At this year’s Oscars, which will be awarded on March 10th, the star can also hope for the Best Actor award, among other things. Cooper plays the conductor Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) in the film, directed and also co-wrote the screenplay.
