The other day I wrote about a dream I had involving Eminem. That was a work of fiction but this story is actually true about how Bradley Cooper and I hung out for several days and we were pals. But the reason why we were pals wasn't because I am super-connected and a wonderful person to be around, it was because I had no idea who Bradley Cooper was at the time even though he was a huge star. I had been out of the celebrity loop and living the middle of the jungle with very limited internet access and no TV for quite some time when his career started to really take off.
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As far as I knew the guy I was sitting with was just another extra in the film. I had no idea he was the star
I was on the set of Hangover 2 and was one of the only extras that got "access" to Bradley Cooper and this was because Bradley allowed it. It's kind of funny how this happened because at that point in my life, Bradley Cooper had become an overnight sensation and me, living in my jungle Thailand world with not a great deal of technology in my life and zero access to movie theaters, I genuinely didn't know who he was when I ran into him on set. To me, he was just another extra and I treated him accordingly. I was talking about normal stuff and smoking cigarettes between takes bitching about how long it was taking for certain shots to get done in the beach sections of Hangover 2 and how hot it was etc. I wasn't starstruck and I wasn't acting foolish being so close to a movie star because I didn't know he was a star and didn't know he was even an actor.
This beach from that film was just a few miles from my house and was where I lived year round. When I was asked by a Thai friend to be an extra for something like $100 a day, I agreed because this was really good money for me and my friends back then.
During casting, you get very quickly assigned a role by a production assistant, there isn't a great deal of thought that goes into who is going to play each role because you don't really act, you just move around in the background. In fact, if you do try to act and get in the shots, they will kick you off the set.
I was told I would be a "stand in" which means you stand where the actual actors are going to stand for the real shooting while the director, sound, and lighting guys get everything worked out. It's really boring and you don't actually do anything other than just stand there in various poses wearing an outfit similar to what the actor is going to wear in that scene.
They choose people that are around the same size as the real actors and I was around the same size as Bradley Cooper - even though they didn't tell me who I was the stand-in for or who he was. It's not like they stand you side-by-side with them to make sure. You need to understand that they don't tell the extras anything they don't need to know, so they didn't tell me who I was the stand-in for, or how famous he was, or even what film we were filming. For all I knew, I was just on a beach getting paid 100 bucks a day to mostly sit in an air conditioned room. When Bradley Cooper also was sitting in this room, I legitimately had NO IDEA who he was.
I was in the air con room that I was told to go and sit in because I was sweating a lot. It is already very hot in Thailand and it gets more hot when you have a bunch of powerful lights being pointed at you and when you (me) are nervous because a bunch of people are moving you around and looking at you while you are doing a job.
It turns out that this air con room was meant to be for the stars only, but I never saw the sign and since I was escorted into that room by an assistant director, I presumed I was allowed to be in there so there I sat until they needed me again. I was often in there alone, just drinking water and reading a book when one day another guy walked in there and sat down as well. It turns out it was the super-famous Bradley Cooper but to me it was just another guy who was also a stand in like I was.
I didn't react like people do in videos where they meet someone famous. I'm not going to say that I am super chill and would keep my cool if I met someone that was a movies star, but I legit didn't know who he was and just created some small talk like you do when you meet anyone for the first time.
So I guess he kind of appreciated the nonchalant way that I talked to him. I offered him a cigarette and he took it and was about to walk outside when he lit up right there in the room which of course isn't allowed but I suppose Bradley Cooper can do whatever he wants.
I can recall some some of the stuff I talked to him about and I was actually kind of boasting about myself and how I had lived in Thailand for many years at that point. I was talking an awful lot about me and I would ask him if he lived in Thailand and he said he didn't etc but he really liked it here and blah blah blah... just two dudes sitting there having a chat. I wasn't asking for selfies and autographs mostly because I was unaware that I was sitting with a star. The fact that I was in Bradley's green room without permission was an accident and I was only in there because it was extremely hot that day and the director was having difficulty with me as the stand in because I was sweating through my outfits and this was making things take longer.
Later on I would come and go from that same room when everyone else was avoiding it. As it turns out I wasn't actually supposed to be going in there but Bradley never had me kicked out because we were genuinely getting along. We had a real laugh about it later when a production assistant pointed out to me that he is one of the stars of the movie. When I pointed this out to Bradley he was actually jealous of how someone could remain so blissfully unaware of celebrity and films and he was intrigued about how that is possible. He thought it was really cool to be detached from the world but I didn't see it as a point of pride, it was just something I accidentally did when I moved into a rather nice house in the middle of nowhere that didn't have internet access. Smartphones did exist in 2009 when we were filming this but they were absurdly expensive and therefore I didn't know very many people that had them so tethering off your phone for the internet wasn't something I ever contemplated. I was living in nature for a few years there and kind of appreciated it. I don't think I could do that again now though.
Hangover 2 is a movie that will always remain special to me because of this. As strange as it is to believe this, I had not only never seen hit film "The Hangover," I didn't even know it existed at the time.
It was a unique point in time in my life because I was a scuba instructor living in the jungle, who didn't care what was going on in the world and was quite happy to be completely disconnected from the modern world. My friends at the time were of a similar mindset and when I would speak to the other dive guides and instructors we tended to talk about local affairs and also about diving. I really liked my life then and was happy to be not part of the global community.
I would later read up on Bradley and find out that he is considered a "nice guy" by Hollywood standards and I can attest to this. He could have completely blew his top when he went to what was supposed to be his own private space on the set and had me thrown out but instead he just sat down. I can't say for sure but I think that he enjoyed sitting with me because I didn't talk about acting, I didn't ask probing questions about what it was like to be a famous actor, and I didn't try to get him to help me out in life or try to become his friend in the hopes that I would get invited to Hollywood premieres or something like that. I was just a guy in a room with a cold water that wanted to shoot the breeze with another human to pass the time.
The shooting on that beach only took a couple of days and when they moved locations I didn't go with them because that isn't how work with extras works. It is cheaper for them to just get other extras at the new place than it is to pay for travel and what not. Cooper and I didn't exchange contact information or anything and I never saw him again. We parted with a handshake and a "nice to meecha" like you do with any regular person. I sometimes wonder if he remembers that strange guy that was in his trailer that didn't know who he was.
I think we got along because I treated him like another human, instead of wanting to take photos and trying to finagle my way into his life to benefit myself. I would imagine that for most celebrities, most of the people they meet are constantly kissing their asses and I wasn't doing that at all. I think that celebrities probably enjoy this when it happens although I didn't spend enough time with Bradley Cooper to ask him about that. Keep in mind that for almost all of the time that we "hung out" I didn't know who Bradley Cooper was, let alone that he was sitting in the room with me at the time.
So that is a fun time in my life where I got to hang out with one of the biggest stars in the world and have a chat for 2 days and we got along. I suppose the moral of the story is that if you want to get along with a famous person, you need to start by not knowing who they are.