Two years ago, that luxury yachter on the river Styx known as Bradley Cooper was attached to star in Alex Proyas’ 3-D “aerial warfare” adaptation of Paradise Lost, before it was determined a 3-D Bradley Cooper-as-Lucifer movie would only omit the most important dimension…. of pain. Still, John Milton’s epic poem of heaven and hell is ever on Cooper’s mind, even beyond its apt rendering of the fiery stalagmites upon which all Cooper’s thoughts writhe.
Cooper's new interview in GQ plunges you heedlessly into that internal darkness—discussing his descent into depression on the set of Alias; diverting into violent tangents (“I think we’re going to get into a fucking fight, bro”); and capturing Cooper’s wickedly gleeful disregard for human life as he’s interviewed while “eating a salad and driving at the same time.” And then it finally gets to Cooper musing on his first encounter with Paradise Lost, while studying English literature at Georgetown, and what Milton continues to mean to him:
Milton, bro? Milton. Fuckin’—that was the end of it. Motherfucker’s 57 or whatever, blind, dictating it to his fucking daughter-nurse—Paradise Lost? I mean, I just couldn’t… That poem fucking killed me. Satan? That character was un-fucking-believable. I could taste him in my mouth, dude, reading that. I really, really, for some reason, connected with that poem.
Alas, with the Paradise Lost film still indefinitely on hold, that taste of Satan in Bradley Cooper’s mouth has yet to be expectorated into a meditation on the ways of God, in relation to his earthbound bros. But in light of this confirmation of Cooper’s abiding connection to the source material, it’s kind of a fucking shame, bro.