Bradley Cooper Would Do Hangover 4 ‘in a Heartbeat’

Bradley Cooper would love to do another Hangover movie, he said onstage at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

Cooper signed off on the idea during a Q&A with Deadline‘s Pete Hammond during a career retrospective talk as he received the festival’s Outstanding Performer of the Year award. Bear in mind, this is Oscar season, when nominees like Cooper do a lot of press and are asked a lot of questions, and can say yes to them without having to actually commit to anything. But Cooper sounded pretty excited by the idea.

“I would do it in a heartbeat,” Cooper said. “To work with those guys — as you get older you realize it’s all about the people you work with. So that group of people, they’re so wonderful. We loved every movie we made together and I wouldn’t I would do it in a heartbeat.”

Cooper also shared memories of working on the first film, a huge 2009 success that spawned two sequels, all directed by Todd Phillips.

“It was life changing. It was incredible. And that group of people — Todd Phillips and Larry Sher the DP, everybody. It was one of those things where we didn’t know what we were making. We weren’t even sure it was a comedy,” he said, to audience laughter.

“We were all at Caesar’s Palace, staying there. And we would go back at night and I would still have the tiger marks on my neck, and we’d be in the elevator — people didn’t give a s—. You know? But that’s Vegas, man. I I’ve got tiger claws on my neck and no one even looked at us.”

Cooper said he had the first inkling of how successful the film would be while shooting the scene in which Ken Jeong, playing the gangster Mr. Chow, leaps naked from the trunk of a car.

“We all looked at each other: This is a winner,” Cooper recalled. “Cash the check, boys.”

Brad Pitt on Bradley Cooper and The Hangover

The Hangover may seem far from the Oscar-calibre fare Cooper is known for of late — he’s up for three Oscars for Maestro, for Best Picture, screenplay, and best actor. But Brad Pitt, who presented Cooper with the festival‘s award, noted that it was the first film where he realized what a great actor Cooper is.

“The first time Bradley made me sit up and start taking notes was in The Hangover,” Pitt said in a tribute. “And really, if you look closely, amongst all the chaos of trying to, you know, find their friend, you’ll see the more irreverent that Alan — Zach Galifianakis gets — the more that Phil — Bradley — is enjoying that irreverence. It’s subtle, it’s often to the side of the frame, but it’s there.”

Main image: Justin Bartha, Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis, and Ed Helms in The Hangover. Warner Bros.