The Oscar-nominated actor shares daughter, Lea, 6, with ex-girlfriend Irina Shayk.
Bradley Cooper is getting candid about fatherhood.
While appearing on Dax Shepard‘s Armchair Expert podcast, the Maestro star opened up about how welcoming now-6-year-old daughter, Lea, with ex-girlfriend, Irina Shayk, impacted his life and his sobriety journey.
“Honestly, I’m not sure I’d be alive if I wasn’t a dad — I don’t know,” Cooper admitted. “I just needed someone to say, ‘We’re gonna drop this massive anchor,’ and I’m like, ‘Why? We’re speeding. We just got an upgrade on the boat and I know where the wind is coming in.’ And they’re like, ‘No, there’s a tsunami coming and you need an anchor and we’re gonna drop it. This is going to dictate everything you do from now on.”
He added, “Your DNA is going to tell you there’s something more important than you.”
The Oscar-nominated actor also shared some insight on his approach to raising his daughter.
“I think about how my relationship with my daughter impacts her growth and the journey she’s gonna be on,” Cooper shared.
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“I’m a father [seeking to do] the least amount of damage I can do to my daughter. To have a child not grow up in that way,” he continued, referencing the alcoholism he witnessed in his family growing up. “I want her to have, as much as she can, a foundation that’s like 25 feet thick, cement, that she can walk on this earth with. That’s the goal.”
“I can just feel the safety that she feels. It’s so tangible; it’s palpable,” Cooper added. “That is so fulfilling.”
While the pair have a tight bond now, with the 6-year-old making her debut in his Netflix film, the 49-year-old said it took several months for him to develop a strong attachment to her.
“The first eight months, I was like, ‘I don’t even know if I really love the kid, it’s dope. It’s cool,'” he joked. “And then all of a sudden it’s like no question.”
The Star Is Born actor, who has been open about his past struggles with addiction, previously said he feels “very lucky” to be on the other side as he nears 20 years of sobriety.
Cooper’s candid comments about his family come after he broke down in tears in a resurfaced December interview with CBS Sunday Morning where he spoke about his role as Leonard Bernstein while surrounded by the composer’s children.
While Bernstein died aged 72 in 1990 when Cooper was just 15 and an aspiring actor, he said he felt the composer’s “energy” while filming Maestro.
When asked if he missed Bernstein, Bradley teared up as he said, “Oh, yeah. It’s hard to talk about.”
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“I don’t know. We shared something very special, the four of us [referring to Bernstein’s children Jamie, Nina and Alexander],” Cooper went on to say. “It’s hard to even articulate, but he was with me, certainly, throughout the entire time. His energy has somehow found its way to me and I really do feel like I know him.”
Cooper is up for a number of Academy Awards for the film, which picked up seven Oscar noms, including Best Actress for Carey Mulligan and Best Picture.
