Chris Cooper

He has an older brother, Chuck Cooper (born 1948).

His father was both a United States Air Force doctor and a cattleman, and his mother was a housewife.

Both of his parents were from Texas.

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.

He was also raised in Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Houston.

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."

After he graduated from high school, Cooper became the shop foreman for another repertory company.

He also considered helping his father raise cattle for a living.

Cooper served in the Coast Guard Reserve.

Cooper attended the University of Missouri and enrolled in the theater program, originally majoring in set design.

It was during his sophomore year when Cooper changed his major to acting in order to overcome his "overpowering shyness."

Cooper, therefore, took acting classes at the University of Missouri.

Christopher Walton Cooper (born July 9, 1951) is an American actor.

Cooper was born on July 9, 1951, in Kansas City, Missouri, the son of Charles and Mary Ann (Walton) Cooper.

After he graduated from the University of Missouri, Cooper moved to New York City in 1976.

While living in New York, Cooper shared a one-bedroom railroad flat with four other aspiring actors and dancers.

He supported himself by renovating apartments.

In addition, he worked in construction and served as a janitor and a chauffeur.

At the same time, he studied with Stella Adler and Wynn Handman.

In 1985, Cooper appeared in the London revival of Sweet Bird of Youth.

He is a frequent collaborator with director John Sayles, including Matewan (1987), City of Hope (1991), Lone Star (1996), Silver City (2004) and Amigo (2010).

Prior to his film debut with Matewan (1987), Cooper spent the previous twelve years doing stage work with the Actors Theater of Louisville and the Seattle Repertory.

Cooper's early performances include John Sayles' 1987 film Matewan; the 1989 CBS-TV Western miniseries Lonesome Dove; the 1991 indie Western drama Thousand Pieces of Gold, and the 1992 ABC-TV docudrama Bed of Lies, opposite Susan Dey.

He also portrayed Sheriff July Johnson in the acclaimed miniseries Lonesome Dove (1989), which became one of the most successful Westerns in history.

He has appeared in several major Hollywood films, including A Time to Kill (1996), October Sky (1999), American Beauty (1999), The Bourne Identity (2002), Seabiscuit (2003), Capote (2005), Syriana (2005), The Kingdom (2007), Where the Wild Things Are (2009), The Town (2010), The Muppets (2011), Live by Night (2016), Cars 3 (2017), A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019), and Little Women (2019).

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."

Cooper also took dance classes at Stephens College.

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?"

In 2000, Cooper played Colonel Harry Burwell (inspired by Lieutenant Colonel Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee) in The Patriot.

Cooper won both the Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as John Laroche in the 2002 film Adaptation. He played a lead role in the historical and political thriller Breach (2007), playing FBI agent and traitor Robert Hanssen.

He was nominated for another Screen Actors Guild Award, a BAFTA Award, and won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and a Golden Globe Award in 2003 for playing the role of John Laroche in Adaptation. In 2002, Cooper also appeared in The Bourne Identity as a ruthless CIA special ops director, a role he reprised (in flashbacks) in The Bourne Supremacy.

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.

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).

He played Daniel Sloan in the 2012 political thriller The Company You Keep, and Norman Osborn in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014).

He also portrayed Al Templeton on the 2016 Hulu miniseries 11.22.63.