Birthday Special: How Silver Linings Playbook broke through Bradley Cooper’s alpha male image of The Hangover

Silver Linings Playbook can catch fans with any preconceived ideas about Cooper on the wrong foot. Contrary to his debonair and apha-male self of The Hangover and others, here he plays a fragile man who not only assaults his wife’s lover but as a result, also suffers a catastrophic breakdown. It leads to him spending eight months in a mental health facility for bipolar disorder.

After being released into the care of his father Patrizio Sr (Robert De Niro) and mother Dolores (Jacki Weaver), Pat just has one thing on his mind. He is determined to win his estranged wife Nikki back. Pat feels he has a new outlook on life, one where he is attempting to see the good or silver linings in everything that he experiences. There is a scene in the film where in a bid to get fit, Cooper is running around the neighborhood and it perfectly conveys how fragile his mind is at this point.

Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper in Silver Linings Playbook.

Talking about his character to The Telegraph, Cooper says, “When I read the script for the first time, I didn’t think I could pull it off, it scared me, I didn’t know if I could be that vulnerable on film. To be put in all these extreme situations that demand me to really do it. You know what I mean? Not act it, but actually do it. That’s scary. And thrilling. So I just took a leap of faith with David (the director) and we did it, for better or for worse.”

Cooper made his debut in the film industry in 2001 with the comedy Wet Hot American Summer which was a critical and commercial failure, but later developed a cult following. He was then also seen in 2005’s Wedding Crashers which more or less established his actor image as an arrogant hot-headed guy. But with Silver Linings Playbook, director David Russell took a huge risk in casting him. As he accepts in an interview, “I was conscious I was re-introducing him to people.”

During the release of the film in 2012, Russell in an interview to The Paste Magazine even makes a reference as to how Pat’s journey in the film is symbolic of Cooper’s re-introduction in real life. He says, “When I saw him in Wedding Crashers, he seemed like a very angry person to me, and when I got to know him he was only more interesting. The guy was thirty pounds heavier and was angrier at that time. It was so interesting when I got to know him, for him to tell me that about himself because that mirrored the journey of the character. As the character is reintroducing himself into the community, so is Bradley when we meet him in the picture. As an actor, I don’t think people have seen that face from him in cinema.”

Bradley Cooper in The Hangover.

Bradley Cooper was later nominated for the Best Actor category at the Academy Awards and Golden Globes and Silver Linings Playbook is still considered one of Bradley’s best performances till date. Here’s wishing him a very happy 43rd!