Don't Be So Quick to Write Off Bradley Cooper

Bradley Cooper has a bad rap. Whether it's because he's best known for playing a "fratty asshole" (Wedding Crashers) and a "smug jerk" (The Hangover) or because he dates a lot of famous actresses, people have "been kind of a dick to him," writes Kyle Buchanan in New York. That all started to change last week, though, when a clip of Cooper giving a Hangover interview in "perfect, fluent French" became a "swoon-inspiring YouTube phenomenon."

Even Hollywood pundits who'd claimed to hate Cooper begrudgingly did an about-face after watching the charming video. But let's not forget that once upon a time, this was a man known mainly as Jennifer Garner's best friend in Alias, a "guy who was so beta-male that Michael Vartan was an action hero in comparison."And over the past few months Cooper has more than "proven his versatility," "his smarts," and "his humility." Case in point: He whipped up a stuffed-squid dinner for the writer who interviewed him for Esquire's cover story. "It almost seems too over-the-top," Buchanan concludes. "Can a male movie star really be so charming and guileless? But why not say oui? After all, George Clooney can't do it all by himself." (Click for more examples of Cooper's loveliness.)