The Ben Affleck Sci-Fi Movie That Bradley Cooper Missed Out On

Bradley Cooper continues to be omnipresent on the big screen, but even for the A-lister, the road has been bumpy on occasion. Cooper didn’t think he would land his game-changing “The Hangover” role in 2009, and he might have completely quit acting if it weren’t for Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2021 film “Licorice Pizza.”

The actor/filmmaker’s first screen role was a 1999 guest star turn on “Sex and the City,” which was by no means a small accomplishment considering the show’s popularity at the time. However, Cooper originally aimed for loftier things. In fact, had the multi-hyphenate had his way, he would have scored the role of A.J. Frost (ultimately played by Ben Affleck) in Michael Bay’s 1998 sci-fi disaster film “Armageddon.” In a 2013 interview with NPR’s Terry Gross, Cooper described his early DIY audition processes:

“There would be calls for, I remember, ‘The Patriot’ for the Heath Ledger role, or ‘Armageddon’ for the Ben Affleck role, when I was in grad school. … So, I would put myself on tape — I had, like, a camcorder — and I didn’t even have anybody to read with, so I would actually read the other character’s lines, leave space in the tape recorder and then say my line, and I did that honestly, Terry, maybe 200 or 250 times over the course of two years while I was in school. And then I would just hand-deliver the tape to whatever casting address there was.”

If you only know Bradley Cooper from films like “A Star Is Born” and “Maestro,” it would be incredibly difficult to picture him in “Armageddon.” Knowing his full scale as an actor, however, it’s pretty disappointing that he didn’t end up in the movie.

Cooper, after all, is notorious for juggling genres. From the comedic capers of the “Hangover” films and the romantic comedy-drama antics of “Silver Linings Playbook” to playing real-life Navy SEAL Chris Kyle in Clint Eastwood’s controversial “American Sniper,” Cooper has long established himself as one of those rare people who you can throw in the middle of pretty much any project and trust him to make it work. Case in point: An argument could be made that Cooper’s most emotionally impactful role to date is voicing Rocket — the genetically-modified raccoon who, on paper, should be the most ridiculous Marvel Cinematic Universe character in history, but who ended up serving as the beating heart and tragic soul of James Gunn’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” trilogy.

Since many actors who actually ended up landing roles in “Armageddon” — such as Steve Buscemi, Peter Stormare, Owen Wilson, and many others — enjoy a similar genre-breaking reputation, it would have been interesting to see how an early-game Cooper would have approached plying his trade with them. Then again, Ben Affleck did a pretty good job as Harry Stamper’s (Bruce Willis) lantern-jawed sidekick/wannabe son-in-law, and things haven’t gone too badly for either of them, so perhaps it all worked out for the best.