Posted on February 24, 2025

Pin

Pin

COOPER ON HIS LIFE BEFORE THE RELEASE OF ‘MONSTERS’:
“I was living in a small apartment in Silverlake. I was teaching yoga, scooping ice cream, doing e-commerce modeling jobs, and auditioning.  I did love working at Salt & Straw—it filled me with such joy. I feel like that job, in a way, is what attracted Monsters because it made me so happy and busy and productive. It made my vibration so high that the job that I actually wanted came.”

COOPER ON HIS FANTASY LIST OF LITERARY WORKS HE WOULD LIKE TO ADAPT INTO FILMS:
Giovanni’s Room, All Fours, and A Little Life. Those are the top three. I don’t want it to sound like I’m conceited, like I can do whatever I want. It’s more like, I just want to do things that I feel have meaning and purpose that I’m passionate about.”

COOPER ON HIS PROCESS OF MERGING HIS SENSE OF SELF WITH HIS MONSTERS CHARACTER, ERIK:
“Well, it started with these Post-its that were on the inside of my medicine cabinet that say, like, ‘You can do this,’ ‘You’re an amazing actor,’ ‘Keep going,’ ‘I believe in you.’ It’s a little kitschy at first, but if you read them all while you brush your teeth twice a day, they start organically seeping into your mind, and you start believing them. I did a similar thing with my trailer, where I had all pictures of Erik and of me on my trailer mirror and some of my lines. I would read them every day.”

COOPER ON WHAT HE’S LEARNED ABOUT HIMSELF THROUGH PLAYING ERIK:
“The main lesson is that wisdom begins when you accept things as they are. Erik teaches speech classes, yoga, and meditation, and they help people who have been through sexual abuse. They’ve gotten college degrees. They’ve found a life in prison because they’ve accepted what happened to them, and they accepted what they did. That takes such courage and bravery and strength and time. I think for that reason they deserve to come home.”

COOPER ON HIS EARLY PASSION FOR THEATER:
“I did musicals all throughout my childhood and then in high school. When I was growing up doing theater, I was always imitating the YouTube videos of the people on Broadway. I learned in school that acting actually comes from within yourself. And you have to—again, bringing it back to the acceptance thing—you have to accept and understand who you are in order to play other people. You have to tap into your own shit in order to get into somebody else’s shit. That became very addicting. That feeling of when you’re in a scene and you lose time.”

COOPER ON HIS UNWAVERING PASSION FOR ACTING:
“You’re walking this line between what is real and what’s not. It’s this magical, euphoric feeling that is experienced by all the people in the room, and it’s different every night, and you don’t have to stop; you just live through it. I want to do that for the rest of my life.”

VMAN 54 hits global newsstands beginning February 21st, 2025.

Photography: Alvaro Beamud Cortés
Fashion: Nicola Formichetti
Creative Director / Editor-in-Chief: Stephen Gan
Interview: Lizzy Goodman
Editor: Kevin Ponce
Makeup: Charlotte Willer (Home Agency) using Chanel Beauty
Hair: Shin Arima (Home Agency) using Davines
Set design: Lane Vineyard

[Photo Credit: Alvaro Beamud Cortés, Courtesy of VMAN Magazine]