Bradley Cooper spilled on catching a “huge break” on the Wedding Crashers set as he reflected on how Vince Vaughn crushed his performance in the hit early ’00s romantic comedy.
The Maestro star, in a conversation with fellow nominees in the Best Actor category at this year’s Screen Actors Guild Awards, said director David Dobkin gave him a “huge break” by casting him as “the bad guy,” Sack Lodge, in the 2005 film.
“I think up to that point, I was always just tried to get it right. Be present and get it right,” said Cooper before remarking on Vince Vaughn’s performance.
“I’m watching this guy destroy a scene, like just crush it. And then he wants another one. I remember it was the scene where the grandmother is shooting him, takes the gun out, and he’s running out, and he’s just like, ‘David, I want to do another one.’ And in front of everybody, this huge crew and lights, it’s so nerve-wracking and just his willingness to fail.”
Cooper described Vaughn as huge and a tough guy who was the “funniest” and “quickest.”
He said, “I was just sort of like in awe of this human, this man just failing, just willing to just try anything.”
He added that it “didn’t even become about the movie” at one point on set.
“It became about all of us watching this artist just explore with complete abandon,” explained Cooper, who once told Inside the Actor’s Studio host James Lipton that Vaughn was a “force of nature.”
“And I remember, it was like a diamond through the middle of my head watching going, ‘That’s it! Like that freedom to just be absolutely willing to fail.’ It changed me forever,” he continued.
Cooper has previously opened up about his character in the film, telling NPR in 2011 that he was a “composite of three to four guys” he went to high school.
“The thing about these types of guys, I was completely infatuated with them in the sense of how they go about living their life so seemingly carefree. And they’re so despicable yet people gravitate towards them. And women like them, yet they’re so demeaning towards women. And I find myself fascinated by them,” Cooper said.
“There’s a weird quandary about this type of man,” he went on to say. “So I studied them in high school. So then when I played this guy ... having observed these guys in high school, and wanting to be them in many ways, it was very easy to inhabit that role — and very therapeutic.”