Bradley Cooper: “The goal is not to achieve success. The goal is to grow.”

Hangover Part II star Bradley Cooper covered a lot of varied ground in his interview with the Wall Street Journal this week.  Cooper is out promoting the Blu-ray and DVD release of Limitless, but he spent much of his time speaking about his opinion on the quality of The Hangover Part II and on his future in acting.

In particular, when Cooper is asked about the critical lashing that The Hangover Part II received (with many critics complaining that it was too similar to the first film), Cooper replies “It definitely perplexed me because to me, it’s not even a question that it’s a better movie than the first one. On every level I just think you’re watching a director evolve. It’s a much more complicated film. It’s a funnier movie. There’s better acting in it, the story’s more compelling. It’s just in every way a more sophisticated film. I think the only thing that it doesn’t have is the freshness of the first one because it was the first one. So, I was more just sort of like wow, it’s interesting, sometimes people just pan things because they’re supposed to, really.”  Cooper isn’t exactly clear what he means by the critics panning the film “because they’re supposed to,” but he does continue to strongly support Hangover director Todd Phillips when he is asked about the possibility of The Hangover Part III and answers “Well, I would do anything that Todd Phillips says.”

Of course, doing comedic films like the Hangover movies and thrillers like Limitless take a tremendous amount of energy, and Cooper lets us in on his secrets of maintaining that energy.  “I think love of what I do, probably. It’s easy to have energy when you love what you’re doing. I don’t take anything for granted. It’s easy to pop out of bed in the morning.”  Part of that love goes with varying up his career choices, as Cooper has agreed to star in The Place Beyond the Pines, a drama from Blue Valentine director Derek Cianfrance.  On that, Cooper adds, “That’s really no strategic decision, it was just this role came up and I met with Derek Cianfrance and I really loved this guy, he’s an incredible talent, so that’s just how that came about.”

Still, despite Cooper’s massive success in The Hangover and its sequel, he claims that success isn’t his main objective.  When asked if he will ever  step back from acting, Cooper replies “Well the goal is not to achieve success. The goal is to grow, so the answer is no, I don’t think I ever will.”

Check out Bradley Cooper in Limitless, now on Blu-ray and DVD.