How Robert De Niro Helped Bradley Cooper Cope with the Death of His Father
Yohana Desta
Updated
1 / 26
How Robert De Niro Helped Bradley Cooper Cope with the Death of His Father
At the Tribeca Film Festival, the pair discussed their careers and swapped stories about what they learned from each other.
Robert De Niro has been an anchor for Bradley Cooper in more ways than one. At the Tribeca Film Festival Saturday night, the actors sat down for a talk about their careers, with Cooper sharing a handful of precious stories about the ways De Niro impacted his career and personal life.
The pair first worked together on the 2011 drama Limitless, then again on the 2012 drama Silver Linings Playbook, directed by David O. Russell. In between, Cooper suffered a huge personal loss when his father died after a bout with lung cancer. But as he revealed at the festival, getting to play De Niro’s son in Playbook inadvertently helped him cope with his father’s death.
“It’s probably the reason why I grew so close to you and love you so terribly as a friend,” Cooper began. “I got to say the word ‘dad’ all the time after my dad passed away, and I got to say it to you. It was this beautiful thing David allowed me to do and to be a part of. That movie, I have to say, was so special. And we all felt it every day on set. I owe David for life for that.”
De Niro smiled and clapped along with the audience after Cooper shared his story. Though he was there to ostensibly moderate a chat with the American Sniper star, it was Cooper who guided most of the conversation, along with some help from Russell. The director was sitting in the audience but was eventually brought up to the stage after De Niro and Cooper urged him to join them. “Help me out,” De Niro joked once Russell took the stage.
For a fuller picture of just how quiet De Niro can be, look no further than this statement Joe Pesci once made to Russell: “If you don’t give him what to say, he’s not gonna say anything.”
Still, the Oscar-winning star can be loquacious when he feels like it, as Cooper testified. Early in the actor’s career, he auditioned for a part in the 2009 film Everybody’s Fine, trying out for a role that later went to Sam Rockwell. Somehow, his audition tape ended up in De Niro’s hands; he called Cooper’s agent to set a meeting with the actor. Cooper went to meet his idol at the Bel Air Hotel.
“You said ‘You're not gonna get the role, but I wanted you to come ‘cause I saw something and I see it now. That’s it. Give me a hug,’” Cooper recalled. “You hugged me and I left.”
Later, his mother asked how it went, but Cooper couldn’t say for sure. But even that quick exchange was enough to keep him going “forever,” Cooper said. Though De Niro completely forgot about the exchange when Cooper told him about it years later, he admitted that meeting young actors and filmmakers to give them a few words of encouragement is something he likes to do from time to time.
As the panel began to wind to a close, De Niro couldn’t resist breaking up the warm and fuzzy vibe of the night by tossing a jab at hisgreatestarchenemy. During the Q&A portion, a fan asked De Niro what role he wouldn’t want to play.
“You wanna guess?” he said with a laugh. “I'll tell ya—Donald Trump.“
From Oprah to De Niro: Behind the Scenes of Vanity Fair’s 2018 Hollywood Issue Cover
JESSICA CHASTAIN, actor, producer.
With her cherry hair and Creamsicle complexion, Jessica Chastain possesses a classical beauty suitable for Victorian high collars (Crimson Peak), to-the-manor-born hauteur (Miss Julie), heroic archery (The Huntsman: Winter’s War), and parts requiring her to keep her dimpled chin cocked. Chastain has also dived into the netherworlds of counter-intelligence (Zero Dark Thirty) and high-roller underground gambling (Molly’s Game, as real-life “poker princess” Molly Bloom) without losing translucence. On the horizon is perhaps Chastain’s greatest challenge: playing the sainted country-music singer Tammy Wynette in George and Tammy.
Photograph by Kathryn MacLeod.
Annie Leibovitz and team observe Jessicas Diehl and Chastain.
Photograph by Kathryn MacLeod.
ROBERT DE NIRO, actor, producer, director.
It is impossible to determine which is more intimidating: Robert De Niro’s scowl, which in his gangster roles signals a beatdown about to ensue (see GoodFellas), or his jack-o’-lantern smile, which indicates he’s going to relish the beatdown about to ensue (see his Al Capone in The Untouchables). Violence isn’t the only language his characters speak, but it is the one in which they are most articulate, especially in the collaborations with Martin Scorsese, which began with Mean Streets and continue today with The Irishman (Netflix), co-starring, among others, Al Pacino (as Jimmy Hoffa!), Joe Pesci, Harvey Keitel, and Bobby Cannavale—ya gotta problem with that?
Photograph by Kathryn MacLeod.
V.F. features editor Jane Sarkin and Annie Leibovitz review wardrobe options with Jessica Diehl.
Photograph by Kathryn MacLeod.
HARRISON FORD, actor, producer.
Amazing how far Harrison Ford’s cocky, goofball grin has traveled since he hot-rodded down the main drag in American Graffiti, a grin that would forge a conspiratorial pact with audiences worldwide. Ford’s space jockey, Han Solo, in the Star Wars saga, and whip-cracking Indiana Jones were—and are—joyous throwbacks to the movie serials of lore, their boyish zeal unextinguished by age, gray, and grizzle. Ford also took on mortal danger with a straight mug as Jack Ryan (Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger), the replicant terminator in Blade Runner, and Dr. Richard Kimble in The Fugitive.
Photograph by Kathryn MacLeod.
Annie with the photo team and Michael Shannon (seated).
Photograph by Kathryn MacLeod.
V.F. executive West Coast editor Krista Smith interviews Annie about the Hollywood Portfolio for VF.com.
Photograph by Kathryn MacLeod.
Detail of Annie’s on-set office, with photo research and blocking plan.
Photograph by Matthias Gaggl.
MICHAEL B. JORDAN, actor.
After appearing in a multitude of television series (most impactfully in The Wire), Michael B. Jordan had his big-screen moment of arrival in Ryan Coogler’s Fruitvale Station, a haunter of a film based on a real-life tragedy that illustrated why Black Lives Matter. Since then, Jordan has muscled up into the heavyweight division, literally in Creed and figuratively as Erik Killmonger, not a name to trifle with, in Coogler’s insanely anticipated rollout of the Marvel superhero Black Panther.
Photograph by Kathryn MacLeod.
ZENDAYA, actor, singer.
Another Disney sensation who has gone mainstream massive, Zendaya—star of the Disney Channel’s K. C. Undercover—has zapped the sweet spot in pop culture where entertainment, fashion, and social media meet and cross-pollinate. She glammed down to play a dorky misfit in Spider-Man: Homecoming, then twirled up to loop the air as a trapeze artist in The Greatest Showman, as if to say, “Why should Spidey get to do all the swinging?”
Photograph by Matthias Gaggl.
The photo team adjusts lighting between shots.
Photograph by Kathryn MacLeod.
Gal Gadot arrives on set.
Photograph by Kathryn MacLeod.
MICHAEL SHANNON, actor, musician.
Everything Michael Shannon is in, he intensifies. As the lawman in Nocturnal Animals, Shannon was an avenging angel in a white Stetson hat; in the keenly anticipated mini-series Waco, a docudrama depicting the siege of the Branch Davidian compound, Shannon’s resolute F.B.I. negotiator faces off against a crackpot messiah (Taylor Kitsch’s David Koresh); and in 12 Strong, he and Chris Hemsworth take on the Taliban. Small or big, there’s no theater of conflict he can’t command.
Photograph by Kathryn MacLeod.
Annie sets up the first panel of the cover, with Oprah Winfrey, Tom Hanks, and Reese Witherspoon.
Photograph by Kathryn MacLeod.
OPRAH WINFREY, actor, producer, philanthropist.
Oprah enrings the earth. Television host, author, producer, magazine publisher, powerhouse actress (The Color Purple, Beloved, Lee Daniels’ The Butler, Selma, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks), influencer without equal, and the first black woman to win the Golden Globes’ Cecil B. DeMille Award, Winfrey is more than the sum of her accomplishments—she’s a gravitational field that doesn’t press down but lifts up. Everything she does is dedicated to betterment without being didactic or, worse, corny. Will Oprah’s next act be a presidential bid?
Photograph by Kathryn MacLeod.
TOM HANKS, actor, producer.
The unfussy integrity, mission resolve, and cool-in-a-crisis humor of Hanks’s Everyman heroes are among Hollywood’s last lingering reminders that we were once a proud democracy, and may still be again. His characters are animated by duty and the common good, not personal glory or Ahab obsession. Whether piloting Apollo 13 back to Mother Earth, Saving Private Ryan, or guiding a planeful of passengers safely onto the drink in Sully, Hanks keeps everything human-scaled and emotionally relatable. In The Post, a sure Oscar contender, he is once again thwarting the forces of suppression and deceit, portraying The Washington Post’s leonine executive editor Benjamin Bradlee, the role Jason Robards rasped into Oscar glory in All the President’s Men. Let the presses thunder!
Photograph by Kathryn MacLeod.
Oprah, Reese, and Tom convene.
Photograph by Kathryn MacLeod.
GAL GADOT, actor, model.
Physically, the Israeli actress, model, and former Israel Defense Forces combat trainer Gal Gadot brought all the right attributes—imposing height and beauty, athleticism, goddessy glamour—to the task of playing Princess Diana, daughter of Hippolyta, better known around the neighborhood as Wonder Woman. But it was a secret power Gadot unsheathed that won the day: charm. In a blockbuster season with so little fun to be had, Gadot’s exuberant high spirits (and Patty Jenkins’s direction) redeemed the DC franchise from its male-menopausal funk. The rest of the Justice League should turn in their trunks.
Photograph by Kathryn MacLeod.
REESE WITHERSPOON, actor, producer.
Fresh from the starting gate, Reese Witherspoon radiated poignant yearning in The Man in the Moon. Only 15 at the time, Witherspoon was a natural on-screen, but a lot of naturals turn unnatural with time; not our Reese. Her special gift is for clear carbonated comedy, most memorably as Legally Blonde’s Elle Woods, whose bunny fluff conceals a snap-crackle-and-pop brain. Rom-coms aplenty followed, girded by dramatic triumphs: country madonna June Carter in Walk the Line and scary momster Madeline Martha Mackenzie in HBO’s smash mini-series Big Little Lies.
Photograph by Matthias Gaggl.
NICOLE KIDMAN, actor, producer.
No matter how many gutsy dives Nicole Kidman takes from the high board in her choices of adventurous roles, directors, and projects (in this decade alone, The Paperboy, The Beguiled, The Killing of a Sacred Deer), the entertainment press insists on propping her on an ivory pedestal and harping on her frosty reserve. More fools they. As an actor, Kidman has never hesitated to get down in the funk. She brought the body heat to Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, her maternal agon in Birth remains an undiscovered wonder, and she was outright freaky-deaky in The Paperboy. Conquering TV with an Emmy-and Golden Globe-winning splash in HBO’s Big Little Lies, Kidman could rest on her laurels but won’t. This Kid don’t quit.
Photograph by Kathryn MacLeod.
GRAYDON CARTER, journalist, producer.
Graydon Carter and Robert De Niro talk between takes.
Photograph by Kathryn MacLeod.
CLAIRE FOY, actor.
Quintessential Englishness is the viola Claire Foy plays, usually in period costume. Foy was outfitted with the poshy title of Lady Persephone Towyn in the remake of Upstairs, Downstairs (BBC), lost her head as Anne Boleyn on Wolf Hall (BBC), and was reconstituted for greatness as Queen Elizabeth II on The Crown (Netflix), contending with a moody husband, a lumbering Winston Churchill, a sprawling empire, and the deadweight of protocols and precedents—all while maintaining cameo-brooch composure. In royalty, as in theater, the show must go on.
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