“We were happy that people came out in droves for “American Sniper.” And then the A-plus Cinemascore. I didn’t even know they had that,” says Bradley Cooper on ‘American Sniper’ and how the film has been doing at the box office to Variety.
The Academy Award nominated actor talks about his newest film, and how he went about putting on 40lbs of muscle for it
Being there are a ton of movies based on the Iraq war, like ‘The Hurt Locker’, Variety asks Cooper why he chose to do ‘American Sniper’, which is directed by Clint Eastwood. His response is:
“I love the character study. Growing up, “Unforgiven” was one of my favorite films, dealing with the psychology of that character. Jason Hall came with me with this story. I saw it right away as a war movie but told as a Western. But everything changed when Chris died and Steven Spielberg came in and said, “We need to make this movie now.” That’s when I fell in love with the guy. It was an incredible experience — the investigative process of trying to get inside a human being’s mind and emotions.”
Cooper spent 4.5 hours a day at the gym preparing for his role as Chris in ‘American Sniper’. His workout differs from the one he did for ‘The A-Team’.
“That was totally different. That was cardiovascular and high reps for bodybuilding. This was weightlifting. There was no cardio. There was no toning of muscles. It was just get f–ing strong as a motherf–er,” says Bradley Cooper on ‘American Sniper’ bodybuilding.
Cooper believes he got the character Chris Kyle down while shooting, and was ready to tell his story.
“I knew it was working. I felt him. I felt like I had successfully entered the world of his, so I would be able to tell the story. If you do all the research, you let yourself be open. I had hours and hours of home videos, and all of their email exchanges, and even his workout playlist. I basically had a dossier on this man’s life. And I had his children, his parents, his wife and the people who knew him. It was a huge amount of information to be digested. Once that all happened, and then I got to the size, and I felt comfortable in his voice, or my voice as him, and I got comfortable with the three sniper rifles that he used, then it was like, “OK, let’s tell the story.”
What do you think about the words of Bradley Cooper on ‘American Sniper’, and all the preparations that went into playing his Chris Kyle character?
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