They say you should never meet your heroes. David Corenswet, the latest in a star-studded lineage to inherit the shield emblazoned across his chest, had never met Bradley Cooper until sitting down together for VMAN—despite playing son and father in his box-office hit (a cameo kept under lock-and-key). In a chat about the latter’s hero turn and upcoming film Mr. Irrelevant, littered with philosophical musings about the role of an actor and the folly of “making it,” Cooper laughs to Corenswet: “Sounds like you got it all figured out!” Corenswet, with the trademark grin that surely helped him nab the role of a lifetime, quickly retorts, “All to say that I know there is no figuring it out.” 

For a first conversation, Corenswet and Cooper quickly uncover a bevy of parallels. From the biographic (both are from the Philly area; both lost their fathers during pivotal career moments), to the interpersonal (both love James Gunn), to the philosophical (both have a finely tuned creative ethos propelling their careers forward), meeting your heroes might not be so bad when you’re already Superman.

BRADLEY COOPER: We’ve never met!

DAVID CORENSWET: This is hello and nice to meet you. How are you, Bradley? I’m following your lead.

BC: So I saw you on your first Ryan Murphy show. 

DC: Oh, wow!

BC: I would watch anything that I saw you do, man, you’re just incredible. What a talented actor, man. You just make everything so real. You’re in your voice.

DC: This is so cool. It’s gonna be really hard for this not to become me interviewing you. I mean, you must have had this experience in your career as well, where you meet an actor whom you’ve looked up to, and you sort of think of as impossibly, distantly excellent.

BC: I remember being at Chelsea Piers, this is like 2005, and this guy comes up to me. He’s like, ‘Hey, man, I think I know you,’ and I look up, and it’s Phil Hoffman, and my whole body turns to ice. I’m like, ‘No, no. I know you.’ And he’s like, ‘I can’t believe I’m doing this, maybe Wedding Crashers?’

[Both laugh]

BC: The first thing I want to start with: how old were you when you decided to do this? Because you went to Juilliard, right? Did you grow up in a family that was theatrical?

DC: Family of lawyers, but I would say artistic lawyers. My dad was an actor. He went to Harvard.

BC: Oh, wow.

DC: And got really bad grades at Harvard because he was so unmotivated, because really all he wanted to be doing was theater, and so he moved to New York and bummed it as an equity actor, doing off-off Broadway and background work on soap operas and movies and stuff, and just had the best time. Loved it, always talked about it with such fondness for the lifestyle of an actor, the culture of New York actors. I did my first play in Philly when I was nine at the Arden.

BC: You started early. This was because of your dad?

DC: Yeah, that was my dad’s guidance. Seeing him love it—like when he would bring me to rehearsals, and he would teach me about the tradition.

BC: Is he still alive?

DC: No, he died in 2019. He and I spent a lot of time in the theater. He was sort of looking after me, and his love of the traditions of it. The half-hour call, and the signing in, all those little things.

BC: So that was his profession.

DC: He always had a day job, but he was in New York, acting for seven years.

BC: By the time he had you, he was not doing it?

DC: No, when he wanted to have a family, he went to law school, met my mom at law school, and then he was a lawyer, and then a book publisher.

BC: So what did he get to see for you in terms of like—he saw the first Ryan Murphy thing, right?

DC: No, he died in June 2019. I had shot The Politician in the fall of 2018. He had lung cancer at that point. And that New Year’s was when we sort of knew that it was in the last chapter. I finished The Politician, and I was planning to come back to Philly and live with him for a period at least, to just spend some time with him. And then, just after I got back to New York that winter, I found out that Ryan was going to put me on hold for the lead of an unknown show, the next show that he was going to develop at Netflix, which turned out to be Hollywood. So the fact that I had just finished The Politician, and then he said, ‘We’re going to take you off the market for television. We’re going to develop a show around you,’ meant that I could go and live with my dad for those six months in 2019 full-time. I got to just fully hang out with him and spend time with him. He died before The Politician came out, so he didn’t see it, but he knew that Ryan had become my champion, and he had seen in me whatever my dad saw, which was that I had something to offer. So he got a lot out of that. Obviously, it would have been great for him to see everything, and he would have loved it and appreciated it so much. But I think he could see that I was going to be able to build a career for myself, which was good.

BC: Wow, we have a lot of connections. I didn’t realize that. You know, my father died of lung cancer, and I moved back to my house and took care of him. That’s so crazy.

DC: How old?

BC: So he died January 15, 2011. He was 71, and it was a similar thing. He had seen The Hangover. He suffered like an animal for 5 years, but my parents went to see that movie because it was in the theaters for a long time. They saw it probably 200 times.

DC: Oh my god.

[Both laugh]

BC: And then I actually moved back home to my house I grew up in and took care of him. I got lucky because I was shooting a movie called Limitless, that shot in Philadelphia. And then I had to leave to shoot Hangover 2 in Bangkok, and I was so terrified that he was going to die while I was away. I was with him all summer and spring. Went from September to New Year’s in Bangkok, came home, and then he died two weeks later. It was crazy.

DC: Mine was sort of shorter, but I left to do a photo shoot for The Politician for 4 or 5 days, and my sister stayed with him, and on the day that I was going to fly back, she texted me and was like, ‘He’s not doing well.’ So I moved my flight like 3 hours earlier. I just left on the 1st flight. I got home, I spent that night with him, and the next day he died. It was the best you could hope for, considering the circumstances. Were you with your dad when he died?

BC: Yeah, he was right here. [Gestures towards his chest]

DC: I mean, how could you ask for better?

BC: I thought that actually, ‘I hope I’m this lucky. To have people that love you right there for the transition.’ What a thing to go through, man. So how old were you?

DC: 25.

BC: Oh, wow, yeah I was in my mid-thirties. That changed my life. That last breath he took, everything shifted. 

DC: This is such a segue, but I got into directing kind of in school, when I was getting interested in filmmaking. I just realized that directing you get so much more involved as a director than as the actor. Whereas in theater, as the actor, it’s kind of all up to you. And I was really frankly pissed off to see how good A Star is Born and Maestro are. I just think it’s insulting that you could make such great films as your first films, and it’s going to be really hard for the rest of us actors who eventually transition to directing to measure up. But that said, were you thinking about your father and his experience and your experience with him when you made Maestro? When I watched it, it made me think of my father, and I found that everybody I talked to who had lost their father found it to be deeply moving.

BC: Yeah, I mean that whole thing with Felicia’s Hospice care at that East Hampton house was [inspired by my experience] basically—minus the East Hampton House—down to the pajamas that she wore. He used to every morning take the toilet paper and fold it and make a little pile, and then put it like this. And then that’s what she does in the movie. And then that last scene where he’s with her is basically what it was like with me with my dad. So that was all based on my experience with my father. But, oddly enough, A Star Is Born, that Jackson Maine character, I didn’t even realize it until after, but I was playing him in a lot of ways. He drank gin and tonics, and Jackson does, and that was the most oddly cathartic journey for me, artistically, for mourning my father. And I didn’t even realize it, David, until after.

DC: Well, that’s understandable. Obviously, because of the great differences in your father’s story and the character’s story in A Star Is Born. I’m dumber than you are. The one movie I’ve gotten to do since Superman, was this football movie called Mr. Irrelevant, which we just shot in the spring about a true story of a New York Giant. We’ve got to talk about this, too. It’s funny. I’m playing a New York Giant. It’s really hard. The one touchdown he scored in professional football was against—

BC: The Eagles?

DC: Terrible. But he gets diagnosed with cancer after his first season, this rare, aggressive cancer, and then the whole story is about him fighting to come back. But the end of the movie is him dying of lung cancer. When I read this script, I wasn’t like, ‘Oh, my dad.’ It’s just a good script. It’s a great part. But as we got to that point in shooting, I was inevitably drawing on my experience, taking care of my dad. And I did have this strange kind of cathartic experience of remembering that time, and imagining more clearly. You know you do a good amount of empathizing and putting yourself in the other person’s shoes, but when you’re taking care of somebody, you need to limit that a little bit.

BC: Of course.

DC: Going through that and imagining it, and simulating going through it a little bit, it was an amazing reminder of that time and what I watched him go through. Imagining it to a certain extent felt like it did close a loop weirdly. I didn’t expect that at all. And it was obvious to anybody else looking. The character’s name is John. My dad’s name was John, and I didn’t fucking see it.

BC: I think you’ll probably find that as you keep going, he’s going to come up a lot. I really believe that goes straight to the viewer, there’s something authentic you could feel watching the movie. How was the football stuff to shoot that? I’m fascinated. Were you doing contact? 

DC: Yeah, I did. I trained with the middle school football coach at Haverford Boys School here, because that was my level of understanding. I really needed the basics. We had the best crew of guys just beating the shit out of each other. I had prepared myself to be able to give and take hits, you know, within reason. I had a great football double, but Jonathan [Levine] was like, ‘I don’t want anything where you’re hitting or getting hit.’ And I’m like, ‘We can do it safely.’ So I did get to give and take some hits, and the first sort of big one that I took on camera, Jonathan hated. He was like, ‘No more of that.’ And I was like, ‘I’m fine. Everything’s good.’ I went home that night, and I dreamt about it. And this is what Phil Brown had told me about this psychology of football players, of loving the violence of it, and sort of getting addicted to that impact moment. And I felt it immediately. I’m very happy to never get hit or give a hit, but doing it in that context, where we were really taking care of each other, it felt like camaraderie. 

BC: Wow, that’s incredible. Oh, I can’t wait to see that. So, getting back to Superman, did you work on banking the character before? Was it something that clicked when the suit came on? How did that work, or was it something that evolved as you shot the movie?

DC: At this point in my career, it always ends up evolving because I just have never worked on something long enough to know. This is the longest I’ve worked on something by a long shot, and just the most days that I’ve put into something. So it was my 1st experience, getting 4 months into a shoot and going like, ‘Where am I now? And who am I? And what did I feel like when we started? And I’ve still got 2 months to go.’ 

BC: It’s ideal to work with a writer-director, don’t you think? To me, it’s invaluable.

DC: As long as they’re willing to talk to you endlessly about it, as James is, it’s the best, because it just makes it one conversation.

BC: Right, and it’s no one’s interpreting what somebody else who is not there meant. I really love that about James. We worked together for 10 years, oddly enough, on one character, which is really fun in a very unorthodox way. But the thing that I really got to witness was his ability to disregard something that’s not working in the moment and pivot, and I really appreciate that, because we’re actually trying to create a living organism. Is that what your experience was like with him as well?

DC: 100%. I just got this sense of playfulness, and he didn’t talk the way the stereotypical auteur does, who’s like, ‘Every frame is meticulous, every line is perfectly so.’ But he also said in our first meeting, ‘I storyboard every frame of the movie.’

BC: I actually find the most liberation we can have in this medium is through restrictions. I remember, I think it was De Niro who came to our school, and he was talking about how when he was making Mean Streets and Raging Bull, he and Martin Scorsese were really changing it every day, that it was all about a sandbox. I loved his use of that imagery. As long as you just know the parameters of this sandbox, you can build whatever you want, but the sandbox has a certain dimension.

DC: Yeah, and James is that way where we could have all these conversations beforehand. And we could look at his storyboards and get it so that when you’re there on the day you work extremely efficiently. It’s very organic; it felt like making short films with my friends in the backyard.

BC: Yeah, I mean, talk about restraints. On Guardians of the Galaxy, he already shot the movie!

[Both laugh]

BC: And then I come in and I was able to improvise with it where we would mess around with what was already said.

DC: And part of that is his confidence of, ‘If what we find is good and I’m convinced by it, I’m not gonna let something that’s great that comes out of this get lost or not make it into the movie.’

It was the best experience. I was assuming that it was going to be some kind of a deal with the devil where who gets to play Superman—and that’s like the greatest thing ever—there’s got to be a catch. It’s got to turn out to be a soulless, mindless machine. It wasn’t at all. It was the most fun I’ve ever had.

BC: I mean, talk about an auteur. He’s got a certain comedic style, rhythm, music. I can’t say enough about him. I love him, I fucking love him, and he’s a champion of other people, too.

DC: That’s for sure.

BC: He wants everybody to succeed. And he still has a hell of an edge. That’s for sure. So I want to shift gears to talking about you and your life. This movie just did incredibly, this weekend—congratulations—which is such a wonderful thing. I assume you’re in your mid-thirties?

DC: I just turned 32.

BC: Amazing. It’s a hell of a thing, this kind of transition that happens.

DC: How old were you when The Hangover came out?

BC: I was older. I think I was like 35, or 36, but I had the benefit of, I had a full life. I had no contact with this world, this business, other than just absolutely being obsessed with movies growing up. And then I was able to make a living right out of grad school and pay off my loans. But I was always job to job. And because I did it for so many years, it just was very incremental. I know what it’s like to go to a premiere of a movie I’m in and they didn’t have enough seats for me to sit. So I already sort of felt every aspect of the business. So by the time Hangover hit and it was pretty big, I had the benefit of perspective.

DC: I think I have the same feeling. I have been working since I was in school, and I got to work on so many great little things that I learned so much on. And a couple of things where people said, ‘This is going to change your life,’ and—

BC: And it really didn’t? 

[Both laugh]

DC: Already, this football movie that I got to do this spring was the deepest, most fulfilling artistic experience I’ve ever had, working on a film that I wouldn’t have been able to do if I hadn’t done Superman.

BC: I was gonna say, my life really changed artistically, with Limitless way more than The Hangover. Because even after The Hangover, they were like, ‘Oh, he’s that dude.’

DC: Right, yeah.

BC: You know what I mean. And then you actually can carry a movie. And then you can get Silver Linings Playbook, you know.

DC: Especially when you’re in school, there was this feeling of, it just takes one thing, but the reality is it’s not true. There’s people who might have had one thing that was like the illusion of overnight success. But you know that there was the work leading up to it. And what’s even harder to see is that actually, that success gives you a window of opportunity to prove you can do more. 

BC: And by the way, we do the same thing. It’s easy to label things, put them in a box so you can understand them, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s human nature. Like Ilya Kazan said, ‘If you want to audition to play a cowboy, show up with a horse.’  And especially Superman, it’s a huge opportunity, but it just becomes another box. And you’re like, ‘No, no, I’m actually not in that box.’ And people are gonna be like, ‘Yeah you are.’ And then you prove them wrong, and you’re right. It never ends.

DC: As an actor, I can’t determine whether my work is good or not. I’m delivering something to a director who then shepherds it to a final product. And as a director, you’re trusting an actor coming in to say the lines. You can tell them what to do, but they’re still a person, and if you handle them wrong, or not carefully, or you know you could screw them up, even if they’re a great actor. You could be the wrong director.

BC: Yeah, it’s a collective. I mean, that’s why I love what we do. And that’s why I find it very similar to sports. You can’t practice your 15-footer during a game, right? All we’re trying to do is get in there together, put our mining caps on, go down to the hole, and hope we come out and we have some gold. That’s it. But we’re doing it together. 

DC: And ultimately, the only proof—if there is proof—is time. There’s no one thing that proves it. Because you’re only as good as the last thing you did. You never know. Was I good in Superman because I was playing Superman? Will I be any good when I’m playing some other character, or in some other director’s hands?

BC: And ultimately it doesn’t even fucking matter. What matters is everything you got from this that you just put into this last movie. And then everything you got from that and your life and us talking right now for me, too. That’s the journey. And the more I just focus on what moves me. That’s the north star. 

And is directing in your future? It sounds like it.

DC: Yeah, I think so. It was easier when I felt like I could make a movie that nobody would care about, because I do feel like I need to play in the sand a little bit. I’ve made some shorts, and I have a false confidence, not a false confidence, but I have this feeling of: I can do it. I could get to the finish line. 

BC: That’s awesome. That’s essential.

DC: This is why you’re so fucking frustrating, dude. At some poin,t I’ll actually ask you about how you got to make such a great first feature. I mean, you were working on that for—what—six years?

BC: Yeah, I mean, that’s patience, but then again, back to love, there are a lot of little victories all through those six years. Every day the grind, until all of a sudden it starts to flow. Like anything, I’m glad it’s hard.

DC: I think the other thing you realize—in the same way we were talking about the success—it doesn’t get easy. But when you do it enough, you start to go, ‘It’s better that way. I’m glad it’s not easy.’ You learn that that’s just a trick of the world, that being satisfied is the goal. I mean there’s all the cliches that describe it. Alright dude. I wanna let you go, but can we pretend to be friends or something?

BC: Dude, I’m in. You still live around Philly, right? I’d love to get together, man. It’d be an honor.

DC: For me as well. This is such a fun way to get to start talking.

This cover story appears in the pages of VMAN 55: now available for purchase!

Photography Alvaro Beamud Cortés (Interlude Project)

Fashion Christian Stroble (Opus Beauty)

Creative Director/Editor-in-Chief Stephen Gan

Interview Bradley Cooper

Editor Charlie Kolbrener

Grooming Amy Komorowski (The Wall Group) using CIRCA 1970 + Oribe 

Location Splashlight Studios

Photo Assistants Simone Triacca, Astin Ferreras 

Fashion Assistants Linn Tabudlong, Jacqueline Espa