BRADLEY COOPER TALKS ABOUT HIS NEW ROLE IN “SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK” AND WORKING WITH JENNIFER LAWRENCE

Bradley Cooper talks about working with Jennifer Lawrence and “the best American director,” David O. Russell in the new Oscar-buzzed movie, Silver Linings Playbook.

It’s hard to believe Bradley Cooper would have any trouble with women, but in his latest movie, Silver Linings Playbook, he’s super crazy about love, so much so that it lands him in the nut house.

Adapted from the 2008 novel by Matthew Quick, Silver Linings Playbook sees Bradley Cooper as a bipolar history teacher, who has lost everything: his house, his job, and his wife. He’s moved back into the Philadelphia home of his working-class parents (Jacki Weaver and Robert DeNiro) after a court-ordered stint in a mental institution. This stint was the result of his violent attack on a fellow teacher whom he caught having an affair with his wife (Brea Bee), who Pat decides is worth winning back.

Despite being delusion, Pat won’t be a loser. “He’s got an agenda,” Cooper says of his character. “He’s going to get in shape and he’s going to get her back, that’s very clear.”

He is determined to rebuild his life, remain positive and reunite with his wife, despite finding her having sex with another man. But all Pat’s parents want him to do is get back to normal and share their family’s obsession with the Philadelphia Eagles football team.

But when Pat meets Tiffany, played by Jennifer Lawrence, a girl with problems of her own, things get complicated. She seems to have an agenda of her own. She offers to help Pat reconnect with his wife, only if he’ll do something important for her in exchange. As their deal plays out, an unexpected bond begins to form between them, and silver linings appear in both of their lives.

Cooper says before filming Silver Linings Playbook, he hadn’t seen any of Lawrence’s work and he was intrigued that someone so young beat out many actresses for the part. “I had never met her and I had never seen Winter’s Bone but I was told she was an incredible actress and there a lot of women that were jockeying for the role and that she won out and she was only 21 years old,” Cooper said. “I had a conversation with her on the phone before we started filming, and I certainly knew right away that it was gonna work, this dynamic, and how special she was.”

At the helm of the film is director David O. Russell, who Cooper was in awe of. “For me, he’s one of the best American directors,” Cooper said. “There’s not even one question about it, from Spanking the Monkey to Three Kings to Flirting With Disaster to I Heart Huckabee’s and The Fighter—I’m mean, he’s incredible.”

According to Cooper, it’s with Russell, Lawrence, DeNiro and Jackie Cooper—a team with different backgrounds—that makes this drama/comedy induced movie surrounding the family, special. “It’s a very smooth, very romantic movie,” Cooper said.  “I think that centers around people that are quirky so it’s a mixture of a genre of people that you never seen before because of the players in it.”

Silver Linings Playbook opens November 21 and stars Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Jackie Weaver, Anupam Kher, Chris Tucker, Julia Stiles, John Ortiz, Shea Whigham, and Dash Mihok.

—Toni-Marie Ippolito