LOS ANGELES - With Hollywood’s current crop of male superstars - Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, Tom Cruise, Matt Damon - now in their 40s, studios are looking for younger talent to step up. Enter Bradley Cooper, 36, whose eligibility can be dated, more or less, to the release of “The Hangover,” the smash 2009 comedy in which he co-starred as the suavely piggish Phil.

While “The Hangover” was the highest-grossing R-rated comedy ever, last year’s “A-Team,” his most prominent job since, underwhelmed both critics and audiences. Now comes his latest movie, the thriller “Limitless,” which should answer the question: Can he carry a movie on his own? (Not to mention hold his own against Robert De Niro, who shows up in a combative supporting role.)

With “The Hangover Part II” due in May, this is an important moment for Mr. Cooper.

“The camera loves him,” said Liam Neeson, who starred with Mr. Cooper in “The A-Team” and appears briefly in the coming “Hangover” sequel. “He reminds me a bit of Paul Newman, particularly around the eyes and in the way he has this suaveness but also this quick intelligence.”

In “Limitless” Mr. Cooper plays Eddie, an awkward would-be writer who discovers NZT, a drug that allows him to use 100 percent of his brainpower. On NZT Eddie writes a brilliant novel and makes a Wall Street fortune .

Mr. Cooper takes pleasure in portraying alpha males. His favorite thing about “Limitless,” though, was playing pre-NZT Eddie: obscuring his handsomeness, breaking from type and getting closer to the kind of transformational acting he grew up admiring in heroes like Mr. De Niro, Gene Hackman and John Hurt.

For Mr. Cooper “Limitless” is a chance to prove that he’s adept at playing more than a handsome charmer. “I’d eat tons of Chinese food the day before we shot, so I’d be bloated,” Mr. Cooper said. “And my face is kind of messed up - my eyes are actually crooked - so if you shoot me from different angles I look like a different person.”

Mr. Cooper grew up in Rydal, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia, the child of a stockbroker father and a homemaker mother. His father, who died in January, was a cinephile and passed down the passion to his son.

As an English major at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., Mr. Cooper rowed crew, acted in a theater troupe and wrote a senior thesis about the filmed adaptations of “Lolita.”

From there he enrolled in the Actors Studio masters program at the New School in New York, during which he appeared in a “Sex and the City” episode and hosted a Lonely Planet travel series. Mr. Cooper’s breakthrough came after graduation when J. J. Abrams cast him as super-spy Sidney Bristow’s reporter pal, Will, on “Alias.”

“Originally Will was on the outside of what was going on in Sidney’s life, but it became clear that Bradley’s range went far beyond sidekick,” Mr. Abrams said .

Mr. Cooper, whose girlfriend is Renee Zellweger, said he doesn’t share the self-assurance of his characters.

“I’m comfortable in my own skin, but whatever that thing is that you see in them? I wish I had that. That’s something I have to put on.”

A certain savvy seems to be at play in the wide range of films he’s done. Mr. De Niro, who joined “Limitless” partly because he liked what he saw in Mr. Cooper, said: “He has the same commitment as other young, serious actors like Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean Penn, even if Sean’s a little older.”

Mr. Cooper expressed his desire not to run from his current image but rather to deepen it. He became animated discussing the role he was hoping to land in Baz Luhrmann’s coming “Great Gatsby” adaptation: Gatsby’s blueblood rival, Tom Buchanan.

“I don’t even know if I’m on Lurhmann’s radar,” he said. “Maybe he’ll read this article after the role’s cast and say, ‘Oh. Ha. Yeah, that guy was never going to get it.’ ”


By MELENA RYZIK