Bradley Cooper in “Sex and The City”.Photo:Max
Max
Bradley Cooperwill never forget his on-screen debut as “Jake the downtown smoker” onSex and the City.
The Oscar-nominated actor specifically revealed why he ended up being “terrified” that he landed the role of Jake, a sports-car-driving, downtown party boy, in a season 2 episode of the hit HBO series.
“I still remember it: I was Jake the downtown smoker,” he said.
“I auditioned for it, and at that time I didn’t really realize that you could ever get the job,” recalled Cooper, 49. “Honestly, I thought that I had a job as a doorman at Morgans Hotel and then I was lucky enough to audition.”
Bradley Cooper at the 39th Annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival.Tibrina Hobson/Getty
Tibrina Hobson/Getty
TheA Star Is Bornhelmer explained that, because he wasn’t expecting to actually book the part, a lie he told during the audition process came back to haunt him. “I remember when I got the call to do it I was terrified. ‘What do you mean I’m actually going to have to do it?’” he joked. “I couldn’t drive a stick shift, so they sent me to Models Driving School and I was just terrified.”
He continued, “I still messed it up, so they had somebody else drive the car and I just had to … pretend that we stopped.”
Despite being petrified at the start, the experience ended up being “really fun,” and Cooper affirmed that star “Sarah Jessica Parkerwas incredible.”
When it was noted that this year will see the episode’s25th anniversary, he quipped that he feels “old” and added, “S—, I’ve been around, dude."
In her desperation to feel young and appealing, she went out to a bar downtown and met bad boy Jake, whom she described as “everything I was looking for that night: single, straight and a smoker.” The romance barely got out of first gear, though — Jake went to a bodega to pick up a pack of cigarettes and found the unflattering magazine cover, prompting Carrie to bolt.
“Bradley Cooper — first job — said he could drive a stick to get the job because the character drove a Karmann Ghia,” said King, 69, referencing a Volkswagen model. “Four in the morning, another Friday outside 14th Street and I said, ‘Bradley, this is where you drive, you take off.’ And he goes, ‘I can’t drive a stick.’"
The showrunner explained that they ended up tweaking the episode because of it. “And so we fixed, changed, pivoted,” he said. “Sarah Jessica’s character Carrie crawls out of the Karmann Ghia and walks herself home.”
Several years after the actor’s appearance onSex and the City, he made his feature film debut in 2001’sWet Hot American Summer. Throughout the 2000s, he also guest starred on shows likeLaw & Order: Special Victims UnitandNip/Tuck, had a recurring role onAliasand starred on theAnthony Bourdain-inspiredKitchen Confidentialas he cemented his film career.
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Sex and the City, the two big-screen follow-ups and its revivalAnd Just Like That…can be streamed in full.
source: people.com
