Bradley Cooper might be a director, but you won’t see that printed on a chair.
The Hangover actor recently gave insight into his filmmaking process on set, sharing how it shifts when he’s taking on both acting and directing duties.
“When I direct, I don’t watch playback,” Bradley told Spike Lee on Variety‘s Dec. 14 episode of its Directors on Directors. “There’s no chairs. I’ve always hated chairs on sets, your energy dips the minute you sit down in a chair.”
But he stressed that while it’s his preference, when he’s on other directors’ sets, he always follows their lead. “I’ll do whatever you say,” Bradley explained to the BlacKkKlansman filmmaker. “I’m your actor.”
In fact, it was his decades as an actor that Bradley, who starred in and directed Netflix’s Leonard Bernstein biopic Maestro, credits with shaping his creative process.
“I was a filmmaker, but I was in the position of an actor,” he noted. “I learned how to help the director by being on the field. For me, it was such a natural transition, once I had the courage to write and direct a movie. Being on the field is where I feel most comfortable to direct.”