Bradley Cooper Attends Premiere of The Words in Philadelphia

Bradley Cooper and Zoe Saldana in The Words

by A.D. AMOROSI

At 37, actor Bradley Cooper is having quite the life. After scoring big with the success of The Hangover series, Limitless and The A-Team, he’s now producing independent projects such as The Words, a film he’s also starring in as an author who lifts another man’s work for the sake of his own glory.

Despite its high-profile cast - Cooper's co-stars include Jeremy Irons, Zoe Saldana, Dennis Quaid, Olivia Wilde, Ben Barnes and Nora Arnezeder - The Words is not a splashy film that ends with an explosive flourish. The movie involves authors talking about their work – even when it’s bad - with passion. It's a quiet story done up in sepia-toned flashbacks of a post-World War II Paris, and cool blue visions of present day Manhattan and Brooklyn where The Words was filmed.

Gloria Cooper and Emil DeJohn

Though The Words was made in New York, its has roots in Philadelphia's Jenkintown area where its star and the film’s writer-directors Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal went to school together. Vowing to work with each other (Klugman says that he send all his scripts to Cooper), the three men finally got their shot with The Words and celebrated its premiere at the Prince Music Theater on August 27 with The Philadelphia Film Society, Allied-THA (a film promotion and marketing company), Mayor Michael Nutter and Greater Philadelphia Film Office boss Sharon Pinkenson. The audience included high school pals from Germantown Academy, and old family friends like Drexel University professor Emil DeJohn who hung out with Cooper’s mother, Gloria.

After a red carpet entrance and the film’s screening, Cooper, Klugman and Sternthal held an audience question and answer session. It was revealed that the first table read for The Words was in 1999 with Brian’s uncle Jack Klugman shortly after the screenwriters conceived the idea and penned a quick thirty-five page treatment (“which remained the same ever since” said Sternthal).

Bradley Cooper, Brian Klugman, Lee Sternthal

Cooper was mostly quiet as he yielded the floor to his partners, but did say a few interesting things after Mayor Michael Nutter thanked the filmmakers for mentioning Philadelphia in The Words and for bringing its premiere to the city. Along with stating that there will be a Philly premiere in November for The Silver Linings Playbook – the David O. Russell film that he and Robert DeNiro shot here last year – Cooper claimed that his next film with David O. Russell and Amy Adams will also shooting in Philadelphia the spring of 2013. The still untitled film revolves around the legendary Abscam political scandal.

The only thing scandalous about The Words premiere was that Cooper admitted to his newest read being Madlibs (Sternthal enjoys Maxim). Klugman singled out more than a few friends in the audience, some of whom had their own witty comments (“hey back in high school I wrote a script with exactly the same story as The Words. Did you find it?”). By night’s end, when someone in the audience asked if they’d change any thing about The Words, Klugman had the best comment of the evening as he deadpanned, “No. It’s perrrrrrrrrrfect.”

Scenes from the red carpet at the premiere of The Words in Philadelphia

Photo Credits:
The Words still ©CBS Films

Gloria Cooper and Emil DeJohn ©A.D. Amorosi

Cooper, Klugman and Sternthal  ©Scott Weiner

Red carpet photos ©Dave Cowden (Allied-THA)
except middle-left red carpet photo ©A.D. Amorosi

Collage by Glamorosi

Posted on Tuesday, August 28, 2012 1:07 PM