Bradley Charles Cooper was born on January 5, 1975 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His mother, Gloria (Campano), is of Italian descent, and worked for a local NBC station. His father, Charles John Cooper, who was of Irish descent, was a stockbroker. Immediately after Bradley graduated from the Honors English program at Georgetown University in 1997, he moved to New York City to enroll in the Masters of Fine Arts program at the Actors Studio Drama School at New School University. There, he developed his stage work, culminating with his thesis performance as John Merrick in Bernard Pomerance's "The Elephant Man", performed in New York's Circle in the Square.

While still in school, Bradley began his professional career, appearing opposite Sarah Jessica Parker on Sex and the City (1998) and on the drama series The Beat (2000). His weekends were spent with LEAP (Learning through the Expanded Arts Program), a non-profit organization that teaches acting and movement to inner city school children. The summers took him all across the globe, from kayaking in British Columbia with Orca Whales to ice-climbing in the Peruvian Andes, while hosting Lonely Planet's Treks in a Wild World (2000) for the Discovery Channel. Bradley had to miss his graduation ceremony from the Actors Studio in order to star in his first feature Wet Hot American Summer (2001). After finishing his second feature Bending All the Rules (2002), his plans to relocate to Los Angeles were delayed when Darren Star hired him to star on the drama series The $treet (2000).

Jennifer Esposito (21 December 2006 - 10 November 2007) 

Trivia

Was a medalist on the Men's Heavyweight Crew team at Georgetown University.
Had to miss his graduation commencement to film Wet Hot American Summer (2001).
Considers Daniel Day-Lewis the world's greatest actor.
Attended and graduated from Germantown Academy in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania (1993).
His father, Charles "Charlie" Cooper, was of Irish heritage, and worked as a stockbroker with Merrill Lynch. His mother, Gloria Cooper (née Campano), is of Italian heritage, and worked for an NBC station.
Cooper has spent many weekends with the Learning through the Expanded Arts Program (LEAP), which is a non-profit organization that teaches inner-city school children about acting.
Has an older sister: Holly Cooper.
Speaks French fluently. He even did an interview, promoting The Hangover Part II (2011) entirely in French.
Auditioned for the lead role of Hal Jordan in Green Lantern (2011), which went to Ryan Reynolds.
Was in a relationship with Renée Zellweger (July 2009-March 2011).
In the Steven Spielberg episode of Inside the Actors Studio (1994), Cooper appears in the audience about 15 minutes into the episode.
Member of the same Los Angeles gym as Ryan Gosling, Jason Sarayba, Jodie Foster, Michelle Monaghan, Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Ashley Tisdale.

There was a lot of Sack Lodges at my high school. - Sack Lodge is his character from Wedding Crashers (2005).
[on getting the script for Kitchen Confidential (2005)] I was in New York shooting Law & Order (1990) and the script came along, and I completely connected to it. From the first page, when he says, "Ever since I was eight years old, I knew what I wanted to be." When I was eight years old, I wanted to be a chef or an actor. I used to cook all the time. I worked in restaurants the first half of my life. (November 2005)
I had size 12 feet when I was 10, so I thought I was going to be 6' 8". My goal was to be able to dunk a basket. I wound up being 6' 1" with size 14 feet. I got the raw end of the deal.
[2010, on his younger years] I never lived the life of "Oh, you're so good-looking." People thought I was a girl when I was little, because I looked like a girl - maybe because my mother would keep my hair really long in a bowl cut. I was in a coffee shop once and the waitress was like "What do you want, Miss?" I was 10 or 11 - the worst age to have that happen. I had a jean jacket on and a Metallica pin. I thought I was really cool.
[2010, on the incredible shape he got into for The A-Team (2010) ] As the movie progressed, I got in increasingly better shape. There's this one fight scene with Liam Neeson toward the end, where it's, like, the apex of the work. We finished and Joe Carnahan's like "Brother, come here, look at this," and he played it back, and I swear to God, it looked like my head was digitally superimposed onto someone else's body. I was like "This cannot be me - that's the way I look?" It was so fucking surreal, 'cause as a kid I only fantasized about looking that way. Remember Soloflex commercials? That was huge when I was a kid. It was like "I wanna be the Soloflex guy. Mom, can we get the Soloflex?".