Bradley Cooper once shared the bizarre reason why he sits on apple boxes while he's on movie sets.
The Hangover star has been a mainstay in Hollywood over the past couple of decades, with roles in a number of films across a range of genres.
Whether he's voicing Marvel's favourite CGI raccoon Rocket, or portraying Chris Kyle in American Sniper, it's fair to say the 50-year-old is one of the A-Listers in the entertainment industry.
Cooper has also ventured away from acting in recent years, starting to direct some of his own titles, while also continuing to star in them.
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Add producer to the list and you could call him a triple threat, but it turns out that he has a fairly unusual way of working on set, specifically as a director.
Speaking to industry legend Spike Lee as part of Variety's Directors on Directors series, Cooper explained his unique process, which oddly doesn't involve chairs.
You'd think that those in the director's seat would want people on set to be comfortable, but the actor says that it's not good as staying on your feet - or sitting on boxes.
“There’s no chairs on sets,” Cooper revealed to the Do the Right Thing director, adding: “I’ve always hated chairs, and I feel like your energy dips the minute you sit down in the chair. So [an] apple box is a very nice way to sit and everybody's together.
“There’s no video village, I hate that.”
There may be doubts about his methods, but movies such as A Star Is Born and Maestro have gone on to become critically acclaimed titles for Cooper, so there appears to be some reason for the oddity.
It may sound bizarre but Cooper may not be the only director who believes in the method.
According to Anne Hathaway, Christopher Nolan also 'doesn't allow chairs' on his sets, telling Variety in 2020 that 'his reasoning is, if you have chairs, people will sit, and if they’re sitting, they’re not working'.
“He has these incredible movies in terms of scope and ambition and technical prowess and emotion. It always arrives at the end under schedule and under budget. I think he’s onto something with the chair thing,” she claimed.
Robert Downey Jr. would second this, saying there were no chairs on the set of Oppenheimer, claiming: “You would go back and sit in your set chair — no, you wouldn't, because there were no set chairs!”
Nolan's representative would later respond to Hathaway's comments, suggesting that she was speaking about the directors chairs clustered around the video monitor.
“For the record, the only things banned from [Nolan’s] sets are cell phones (not always successfully) and smoking (very successfully),” Kelly Bush Novak told IndieWire, adding that 'cast and crew can sit wherever and whenever they need and frequently do'.
Topics: Bradley Cooper, Film, Celebrity
Joshua Nair