Spouse Jocelyne Cooper Role Actor | Name Scott Cooper Years active 1998–present | |
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Occupation Actor, screenwriter, director, producer Awards Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature, Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality Program Movies Black Mass, Out of the Furnace, Crazy Heart, Austin Powers: The Spy, Get Low Similar People | ||
Children Ava Cooper, Stella Cooper | ||
Q a with director scott cooper
Scott Cooper (born April 20, 1970) is an American actor, screenwriter, director, and producer. He is known for writing, directing and producing the 2009 film Crazy Heart starring Jeff Bridges. The film, released by Fox Searchlight Pictures, has received a number of accolades, including awards presented by the Chicago Film Critics Association, the Independent Spirit Awards and by the Writers Guild of America. He received his first film credits as an actor in projects like Gods and Generals and the TV miniseries Broken Trail.
Contents
- Q a with director scott cooper
- Scott cooper and casey affleck meet the filmmaker series 2013
- Personal life
- Career
- Influences
- Awards and nominations
- References
Scott cooper and casey affleck meet the filmmaker series 2013
Personal life
Cooper was born in Abingdon, Virginia. He is a 1988 graduate of Abingdon High School. Cooper trained as an actor at Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in New York City. He received both his undergraduate degree in 1992 and his Doctor of Humane Letters in 2014 from Hampden–Sydney College in Hampden Sydney, Virginia.
Cooper is married and lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Jocelyne Cooper; the couple have two children.
Career
At one point, Barry Levinson was set to direct a film based on Whitey Bulger, the Boston crime boss. In January 2014, Cooper became attached to re-write and direct the film, Black Mass, which was released in 2015. The film was based on the book by Dick Lehr and Gerard O'Neill, and was described as the "true story of Billy Bulger, Whitey Bulger, FBI agent John Connolly and the FBI's witness protection program that was created by J. Edgar Hoover."
Influences
Thomas Wolfe and William Faulkner are literary influences.
Films that have influenced Cooper include: Robert Altman's Nashville, Terence Malick's Badlands, John Huston's Fat City and Peter Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show. His principal film-making mentor has been veteran actor, producer and director, Robert Duvall.
He and Duvall met on the set of Gods and Generals and struck up a friendship. Cooper was married on Duvall's 300-acre (1.2 km2) Virginia estate. The two appeared together in Broken Trail and Duvall produced and appeared in Cooper's film Crazy Heart.