Bradley Cooper had just one conversation with Navy SEAL Chris Kyle.
As Cooper sought the rights to bring Kyle’s best-selling 2012 autobiography American Sniper to the screen, the actor had what he thought would be an initial talk with the man acknowledged as the most lethal sniper in American military history.
“Thank God I got to talk to him once on the phone,” says Cooper, who is a producer and plays Kyle in the film. “It was a very quick conversation. But I did tell him how serious I was about making this movie. And he should just know that whatever fears he had about Hollywood, to just put them aside and trust me. That I was going to do everything I could to tell this story.”