Rick Groen in the Toronto Globe and Mail comments: “There’s only one reason to see Breach, and his name is Chris Cooper, who delivers a performance so magnificently creepy…” Chris Cooper, the talented actor, generates accolades like this for most of his films.
Christopher Cooper was born in Kansas City, Missouri, on 9 July, 1951. His father was a doctor and owned a cattle ranch too. Chris studied at Stephen’s College where he also learnt ballet. He graduated from the University of Missouri with Agriculture and Arts as his majors. He wanted to pursue his ambitions of being an actor so moved to New York after graduating.
Cooper’s earliest acting breaks were in theatre. He acted in a Broadway production, Of the Fields Lately , and in an off-Broadway production, The Ballad of Soapy Smith .
Cooper got his first break in a film called Matewan (1987). The film didn’t do well but his performance was appreciated. His popularity surged as July Johnson in the miniseries, The Lonesome Dove. He also acted in the sequel, Return to Lonesome Dove.
Most of Cooper’s characters involve military men, government officials or politicians. He did only one film Lone Star (1996) that had him in a lead role as a sheriff investigating a case involving his dead father. Other Chris Cooper movies include Guilty by Suspicion (1991), Money Train (1995) and A Time to Kill (1996).
He gained popularity in the nineties when he starred in major films like American Beauty (1999), Capote (2005), Syriana (2005), October Sky (1999) and Seabiscuit (2003). Some of his outstanding performances have been in films like Money Train as a pyromaniac who terrorises toll booth operators, in American Beauty as a homophobic colonel, and as John Laroche in Adaptation (2002). It was in the film Adaptation that he won an Oscar and a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor.
He got an opportunity to work again with the director of American Beauty, Sam Mendes, in the highly acclaimed Jarhead in 2005.
Breach (2007) is a film about an FBI officer who is also a Russian spy. Cooper believes that Breach is the first studio film where he’s been considered the lead. Time magazine and Washington Post named the Breach the best film of 2007 and Time magazine has called Cooper “brilliant” in the film.
Cooper is married to fellow actor, Marianne Leone. Their only son suffered from cerebral palsy and died due to medical complications at the age of seventeen. Today, both Chris and Marianne are involved in work relating to exceptional children. They have also set up a memorial fund, the Jesse Cooper Foundation, in memory of their son.
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