Up-and-coming actors will do a lot to land a big break, and in Bradley Cooper's case, that apparently included a fib.
According to "Sex and the City" star Cynthia Nixon, who appeared on "Watch What Happens Live" on Thursday, Cooper said he could drive a stick shift in order to land the role of Jake, a love interest to Sarah Jessica Parker's Carrie Bradshaw, in Season 2 of the iconic HBO series back in 1999. (HBO and CNN are both part of the same parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery.)
"It was his first job, and he was desperate to get it," Nixon told WWHL host Andy Cohen. "And then the time came for him to pull out, and he was like, 'I don't know how to drive a stick.'"
Cooper himself has reminisced on the awkward moment in question, recalling to Backstage Magazine in 2012 that he even went to a quickie driving school in Manhattan to try and learn in time.
"I thought it went well when I learned on a Volkswagen, but then I was driving a 1962 Porsche convertible where the clutch was as if I was driving a bus," he said. "And I had Sarah Jessica Parker in the passenger seat. They very quickly took me out and put in a stand-in until we arrived."
He was also quoted by Irish Central around the same time as saying, "I was very nervous because I was driving a stick shift, a standard Porsche, and I thought I was going to bang Sarah Jessica Parker's head against the dashboard. That was all I was thinking about."
Cooper is among the list of handsome Hollywood leading men to have played suitors on the hit series, which also includes David Duchovny, Justin Theroux (in two roles) and Bon Jovi.
Turns out, in nine-time Oscar nominee Cooper's case, that little white lie seems to have paid off.
