Dominic Cooper is one of many British actors today whose profile has been steadily on the rise today. While well-received for his roles in films like The History Boys and The Duchess, he’s gained considerable attention in this country for his more internationally-successful films like Sense And Sensibility and Mamma Mia!.
Cooper’s latest role is as Danny, the best friend of the successful David, played by Peter Saarsgard, who has a budding romance with the teenage Jenny, played by Carey Mulligan in the British drama An Education, which premiered to critical acclaim at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. However, the 31 year-old actor was reluctant to share any rebellious things he himself has ever done for love.
“I can’t tell any stories about how rancid I’ve been,” Dominic remarks.
He did, however, offer his perspective about how he felt about the film’s representation of London in the 1960’s.
“It was very interesting going back in that time,” he says, “I didn’t really know much about it. I should, because it’s a decade that’s not that far away and one in which my parents existed and lived through. It often makes me very thankful how much times have changed and how much London has changed. It was on the cusp of becoming a very, very different place, with regards to music and freedom of speech and how people felt about expressing themselves. The Beatles and the Stones were recording at the time, so London was about to change dramatically. But I didn’t really know a vast amount of art then. It was exciting to discover things about it. It seems like it was quite a bleak place, really.”
“There wasn’t any sort of outdoor European café culture,” Cooper continues, “There wasn’t much in the way of artistic culture, unless you had access to museums, unless you were like people I’m portraying. Danny was very affluent, coming from the background in which he did, an educated place. Those kinds of people lived a very privileged, exciting existence. But if you weren’t there, if you were living in Twickenham, in the suburbs, it was gray and grim and penny-pinching and quite oppressive, from what I’ve learned. But the movie is a wonderful little take on England, and the way [screenwriter] Nick [Hornby] has written the characters is so brilliant. He understands where each and every one is coming from and who they are.”
The film premiered to critical acclaim at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Cooper also offered his take on the film’s rather risqué subject man of an older man romancing a teenage girl.
“It depends so much on what that person is like,” Dominic believes, “When you look at Jenny’s friends in the film, they seem like different ages. She seems like a very mature girl, grown-up, at 16. She’s much more adult than the friends that surround her. We all grow up in very different ways. I feel very young in comparison to some of my friends my age.”
“Not that Jenny knows what she’s getting involved with,” he adds, “ but she knows herself well enough, I think, and it’s that person who’s that intelligent and that rounded, and yet she does learn some very harsh lessons rather quickly. She actually doesn’t seem that youthful to me.
However, Dominic was one of the last people to be cast in the film, replacing Orlando Bloom who originally had the role, but dropped out right before shooting. We asked the actor how much time he had to prepare and what inspiration did he drew up in his portrayal of Danny.
“I had about a day from the time I knew I was going to do it to the camera test and rehearsal, which was quite freeing, actually, because I think I avoided the agony of wondering how I was going to portray the character,” Cooper replies, “Nick says that dialogue is not his problem. The structure and various other things can be problems. The ease that he finds in actually dialogue is that he just thinks of something and actually writes it.”
“I’ve never done anything, and maybe because it was the lack of preparation time, where we just said the lines,” he continues, “They were just completely fully formed and there. I suppose it was about the relationship with all of us and learning abut who and why these characters did the things that they did. Danny comes from a very educated, affluent and wealthy background. Why is he stealing pictures off of old women’s walls? He’s pretending to be something he’s not, chasing something that he doesn’t have, which is excitement and vigor.”
Recently, Colin Firth, who co-starred with Cooper in Mamma Mia!, said he’d be interested in working with his castmates in a sequel to the film. However, the actor says he himself knows little of anything about talks of a sequel.
“I don’t know nearly enough, I’m afraid. Everyone else seems to know,” Dominic claims.
Firth also said that one possibility currently being considered for the sequel was using a different artist’s catalog for songs to structure the plot around. We asked Dominic what artist’s catalog he himself would like to see used as basis for a sequel.
“Duran Duran,” Cooper responds.
We also asked Cooper whether he would work alongside Mamma Mia! co-star Amanda Seyfried again, who is now dating the actor.
“It would be wonderful to work with her again,” Dominic says, “We had the most amazing time working together.”
However, when asked about what kind of genre he’d like to do for his next film, Dominic says he’s particularly itching to do comedy.
“I’m really up for all sorts of things,” he says, “I’d like to do more comedy, actually. I never really felt that musicals were my forté.”
The reply to Cooper’s remark on musicals was positive commentary on his performance doing the musical numbers at this year’s Academy Awards.
“You obviously weren’t looking closely enough,” Dominic remarks, “I fell down the stairs and knocked Beyoncé off the stage! I turned around to the musical director and said, ‘I promise you, if you want me to leave, I won’t take offense.’ I just walked sheepishly off in the corner. It was impossible, the dance routines they had. I’m not a dancer!”
One particular tidbit from Dominic we wanted him to comment on concerning girlfriend Amanda Seyfried was her comment that she thought at first that he was gay because of his great taste in clothes. The actor was rather caught off guard and surprised by the remark.
“I don’t think she said that,” Cooper reacts, with good humor, “I can’t even ... I’m just…It may be time for another phone call to Amanda!”
Last but not least, Cooper shared with us the character he himself would most want to play. “I could be Michael Hutchence from INXS,” Dominic says, “Because of the music, the love of the music. It’s not going to have the right ending. I could be a member of a band. I’d dig being a member of a band.”
“It would be great to have much more control over what you actually wanted to do,” he continues, “I think it would be a very proud thing to create, develop and then to see an end product that’s something you were inspired by and have wanted to make. It would be wonderful. But it must take so much effort.”
