Cooper was born on July 9, 1951, in Kansas City, Missouri, the son of Charles and Mary Ann (Walton) Cooper.[1][2] He has an older brother, Chuck Cooper (born 1948).[3] His father was both a United States Air Force doctor and a cattleman, and his mother was a housewife.[4][5][6] Both of his parents were from Texas.[4] Cooper grew up in the suburbs of Kansas City, and spent his summers at his family's cattle ranch, located about 15 miles west of Leavenworth, Kansas.[4][6] He was also raised in Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Houston.[7] While attending Southwest High School in Kansas City, Cooper worked for a local theater company: "I had a background in carpentry, so I could build sets and work in the wings and shift scenes in the evening."[8] After he graduated from high school, Cooper became the shop foreman for another repertory company.[8] He also considered helping his father raise cattle for a living.[6] Cooper served in the Coast Guard Reserve.[4][9]
Cooper attended the University of Missouri and enrolled in the theater program, originally majoring in set design.[4][8] It was during his sophomore year when Cooper changed his major to acting to overcome his "overpowering shyness."[4] Cooper took acting classes at the University of Missouri.[6] He recalled in a 1996 interview with The Philadelphia Inquirer, "I started going in and watching some shows at the theater department. I started taking theater classes and auditioned for plays. And once I got into it, it was pretty immediate. I really felt right, felt at home."[8] Cooper also took dance classes at Stephens College.[5][9]
After he graduated from the University of Missouri, Cooper moved to New York City in 1976.[5][10] While living in New York, Cooper shared a one-bedroom railroad flat with four other aspiring actors and dancers.[4] He supported himself by renovating apartments.[4] In addition, he worked in construction and served as a janitor and a chauffeur.[5] At the same time, he studied with Stella Adler and Wynn Handman.[4][5][8] Prior to his film debut with Matewan (1987), Cooper spent the previous 12 years doing stage work with the Actors Theater of Louisville and the Seattle Repertory.[5][6] In 1985, Cooper appeared in the London revival of Sweet Bird of Youth.[10]
Some of his more notable later performances include: Money Train, as a psychotic pyromaniac who terrifies toll booth operators; Lone Star, in a leading role as a Texas sheriff charged with solving a decades-old case; as Deputy Dwayne Looney in director Joel Schumacher's 1996 film A Time to Kill (based on the John Grisham novel); as Frank Booker in 1998's The Horse Whisperer; and as a closeted homophobic Marine Corps colonel in American Beauty, a role that garnered him a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. To get into character, Cooper said he "depended on a friend who'd fought in Vietnam. I asked him to go deep. What would this man have done? What would be on his walls? On his desk?"[11]
Cooper received another Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for his supporting role as racehorse trainer Tom Smith in 2003's Seabiscuit. In 2004, Cooper starred in Silver City, playing an inept Republican gubernatorial candidate, a character noted for similarities to U.S. President George W. Bush.[citation needed]
Cooper appeared in three acclaimed films in 2005: Jarhead (which reunited him with American Beauty director Sam Mendes and October Sky actor Jake Gyllenhaal); Capote; and Syriana. He also acted in the thriller Breach, playing real-life FBI agent and traitor Robert Hanssen. Cooper commented that Breach was "the first studio film where they've considered me the lead [actor]". In 2007, he appeared as a government agent in dangerous territory in the action thriller The Kingdom and voiced the character Douglas in the film adaptation of Maurice Sendak's book, Where the Wild Things Are (2009).
At the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, Cooper appeared alongside Ben Affleck in The Company Men, early reviews of which praised Cooper's performance as "pitch-perfect".[12]
In 2011, Chris Cooper appeared in The Muppets as Tex Richman, the antagonistic oil tycoon who is unable to laugh. In the musical film, Cooper performed the rap and dance number "Let's Talk About Me".[13]
Cooper met his future wife, Marianne Leone, in 1979 at an acting class in New York City.[3][4][8] On their first date, she helped him carry sheet rock up eight flights of stairs: "That's when I knew this was the girl for me."[4] They married in July 1983.[2][3] Their son, Jesse Lanier Cooper,[19] was born three months prematurely in October 1987.[20] Three days after he was born, Jesse suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and developed cerebral palsy.[6][20][21] Jesse was eventually mainstreamed into Silver Lake Regional High School, where he became an honor student.[19][20] Cooper recalled in a 2003 interview with The Morning Call, "(Jesse) is the best thing that ever happened to us. He's in a wheelchair and he communicates only by computer, but he's taught me so much because he's just so incredibly focused. Now he's in a regular school, which we fought to get him into. He's an honors student, and he's doing great."[6] On January 3, 2005, Jesse Cooper died suddenly and unexpectedly from epilepsy.[19][20] A memorial fund was set up in his name, the Jesse Cooper Foundation.[22] Cooper has said that the death of his son has somewhat helped him understand several characters he played, such as Charles Aiken in August: Osage County (2013)[23] and Phil Eastwood in Demolition (2015).[24]
John Thomas Sayles is an American independent film director, screenwriter, editor, actor, and novelist. He is known for writing and directing the films The Brother from Another Planet (1984), Matewan (1987), Eight Men Out (1988), Passion Fish (1992), The Secret of Roan Inish (1994), Lone Star (1996), and Men with Guns (1997).
Jeffrey Leon Bridges is an American actor. He is known for his leading man roles in film and television. In a career spanning over seven decades, he has received various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, and a Screen Actors Guild Award, in addition to nominations for three BAFTA Awards and two Emmy Awards. In 2019, he was awarded the Cecil B. DeMille Award.
Frances Louise McDormand is an American actress and producer. In a career spanning over four decades, she has gained acclaim for her roles in small-budget independent films. McDormand has received numerous accolades, including four Academy Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and one Tony Award, making her one of the few performers to achieve the "Triple Crown of Acting". Additionally, she has received three BAFTA Awards and two Golden Globe Awards. McDormand's worldwide box office gross exceeds $2.2 billion.
Michael Imperioli is an American actor, novelist, screenwriter and musician. He is best known for his role as Christopher Moltisanti in the HBO crime drama series The Sopranos (1999–2007), which earned him the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series in 2004.
David Russell Strathairn is an American actor. Known for his leading roles on stage and screen, he has often portrayed historical figures such as Edward R. Murrow, J. Robert Oppenheimer, William H. Seward, and John Dos Passos. He has received various accolades including an Independent Spirit Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Volpi Cup, and has been nominated for an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and four Screen Actors Guild Awards.
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Jared Francis Harris is a British actor. His roles include Lane Pryce in the drama series Mad Men (2009–2012), for which he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series; King George VI in the historical drama series The Crown (2016–2017); and Valery Legasov in the miniseries Chernobyl (2019), for which he won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actor and was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie.
Matewan is a 1987 American independent drama film written and directed by John Sayles, and starring Chris Cooper, James Earl Jones, Mary McDonnell and Will Oldham, with David Strathairn, Kevin Tighe and Gordon Clapp in supporting roles. The film dramatizes the events of the Battle of Matewan, a coal miners' strike in 1920 in Matewan, a small town in the hills of West Virginia.
John M. Slattery Jr. is an American actor and director. He is known for his role as Roger Sterling in the AMC drama series Mad Men (2007–15), for which he was nominated 4 times for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. For his role he won two Critics' Choice Television Awards and two Screen Actors Guild Awards.
Jesse Tyler Ferguson is an American actor. From 2009 to 2020, he portrayed Mitchell Pritchett on the sitcom Modern Family, for which he earned five consecutive nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series.
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