American Sniper is proving to have a lot of buzz and interest as the Academy Awards near.
Will this truly be the breakout performance Bradley Cooper has been waiting for with his portrayal of Navy Seal Chris Kyle?
Bradley Cooper recently sat down for the media to discuss his movie, American Sniper.
First, Cooper shares his thoughts on the script for American Sniper.
Jason Hall, who wrote the script, you know, his research that he did, he spent hours and hours with Chris – fishing with him, and going down there, and with seals, almost too close, really, and that all bleeds into the script. And, we were able to bring all that to life in the movie.
At a glance, it might not be apparent that the heart of the movie is a love story. What does Cooper say about that?
The other thing about this movie, it’s a wonderful love story … you have these, sort of, two very strong characters who come in contact with each other. And, there’s a lot of fire and there’s a lot of love and a lot of pain because of it.
*****
Working with Clint Eastwood was a long-time dream. How did that happen?
When I was growing up, the two men that I wanted to work with were Robert De Niro and Clint Eastwood. And, honestly, that was always, I always felt like in some crazy way our paths were going to cross … And, then actually, Clint and I were going to do another movie at one point a year ago and it just didn’t work out and I thought, “Oh, maybe that’s it, maybe it’s gone. I’m never going to work with him.” And then when this came around … the circumstances were pretty uncanny.
Transforming into any character is one of the greatest challenges for an actor. What was it like to become Chris Kyle, an accomplished Navy Seal, and a legendary sniper?
This guy was 230 pounds and he was a monster and when I just finished this Cameron Crowe movie I was 185 pounds. I just said, there’s no way. If I don’t believe I’m Chris no one else is going to believe it. I need to figure out how he talks and I need to figure out how he walks and the only way to do that is to get as big as he was or try to. Along with all the other work. That was just to get to a point to where I could even begin to believe I’m him.
I did as much research as I could. There’s a lot out there, tons out there, and I accessed so many things … I thought it would be so interesting if somebody told him in November, before he was horribly murdered, that there’s going to be this actor that’s going to watch every single thing recorded that you’ve ever said or done, many times, to the point where he can recite it. I mean, it’s just such a real thing and then, that I was that guy, that honor. And that’s the way it felt, it felt that I had a tremendous honor to pretend to be him.
I loved it. I loved every moment of walking in his shoes. Every moment.
Insight from the actor himself! We’ll be watching at the end of February to see if Cooper can snipe himself an Oscar!
by Gordon Shelly
