Bradley Cooper Sees His Career Take Off As Leading Man

Bradley Cooper isn’t so far removed from the days when his drug and alcohol addiction had him destroying himself and his career, but those days must seem like forever ago for Hollywood’s new leading man.

Since his breakout in The Hangover in 2009, the handsome Cooper has been taking on more leading roles, and now the 37-year-old actor has a slate of new movies including The Words. The star recently opened up about the drug addiction he battled when he was younger, saying that the decision to give up drugs and partying entirely helped him turn his career around.

People Magazine’s 2001 Sexiest Man Alive has some big projects ahead, The Province reported. He is headed to Las Vegas to film the third installment of The Hangover, and is also bound for Toronto to promote Silver Linings Playbook and The Place Beyond the Pines at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Cooper also appeared in Hit & Run, a movie written and directed by friend Dax Shepard.

“Yeah, I have 18 films opening,” Cooper joked recently from his Hollywood hotel suite.

Cooper is now appearing in The Words, a collaboration with childhood friends Lee Sternthal and Brian Klugman that portrays Cooper as a struggling writer who buys a valise that turns out to have an old manuscript inside. Cooper’s character passes the book off as his own, earning great reviews but a conflicted conscience.

The movie itself shows just how far Bradley Cooper has come in Hollywood.

The Words was actually a project of Klugman and Sternthal dating back to 1999, the Los Angeles Times noted, but wasn’t able to get financing until Bradley Cooper’s emergence as a Hollywood star. After the break-out success of The Hangover in 2009, Cooper suddenly had new doors opened and was able to help push his friends’ movie through.

“This is a movie that got made because of our friend,” said Klugman. “The sad truth is that without him, this movie doesn’t get made.”

Cooper said he was happy to help his friends, but that the movie is good enough to stand on its own.

“It felt amazing to be able to help my friends out,” Bradley Cooper said, adding, “It wasn’t charity. I believe in them.”