Inside Brad Pitt, Bradley Cooper’s Friendship

For Cooper, alcohol was what he turned to when he “felt like an outsider” in Hollywood during his younger years.

“I was so concerned what you thought of me, how I was coming across, how I would survive the day. I always felt like an outsider. I just lived in my head,” the A Star Is Born director explained. “I realized I wasn’t going to live up to my potential, and that scared the hell out of me. I thought, ‘Wow, I’m actually gonna ruin my life; I’m really gonna ruin it.'”

While friends tried to help him, Cooper resisted—ignoring their concerns. 

“Part of me believed it, and part of me didn’t,” he added. “But the proof was in the pudding: I’d always gotten up at the crack of dawn, and that was out the window. I remember looking at my life, my apartment, my dogs, and I thought, ‘What’s happening?'”

Ironically, Cooper was already sober for years before landing his big break in The Hangover trilogy, a role that would begin his ascent to the A-list and his struggles with tabloid coverage and endless speculation over his love life, something his friend Pitt (now dating Ines de Ramon) also knows something about.