HOLLYWOOD — They say nothing is as hot as a slow-burning fire, and Bradley Cooper's career had been warming up for a number of years before it turned white-hot last year thanks to his starring role in "The Hangover."

The film, which opened earlier this month in Japan, was the surprise comedy hit of the summer in North America last year. Cooper plays the debauched ringleader of a group of friends who manage to misplace the groom during a bacchanalian bachelor party in Las Vegas. So how did someone whose Masters' thesis at the prestigious Actors Studio Drama School at New York University was his performance in the title role of deeply serious drama "The Elephant Man" at the city's famed Circle in the Square end up in a raunchy summer comedy blockbuster? "Just lucky, I guess," he deadpans. Born in Philadelphia in 1975 to an Italian mother and an Irish father, Bradley graduated from Georgetown University — where he was a medalist with the men's heavyweight rowing crew — in 1997, before kindling the sparks of his acting career in New York through his studies at the Actors Studio and appearances on such television programs as "Sex and the City" and "The Beat."

Cooper continued to fan the flames of career, skipping his graduation ceremony at the Actors Studio to star in his first feature film, 2001's "Wet Hot American Summer." Recurring roles on the Wall Street TV drama "The Street" and the longer running hit action series "Alias" soon followed. It was a dream come true for Cooper, who said he'd known since the age of 8 that he wanted to be either an actor or a chef.