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After a whirlwind cinematic year that included roles in films like The Place Beyond the Pines, Silver Linings Playbook and most recently American Hustle, Bradley Cooper is ditching the hair rollers and closing out the year in a big way. The actor has snagged the cover spot of the January 2014 issue of GQ.

Staff writer Zach Baron spent time with Cooper in Hawaii, where he was photographed for the magazine’s Spring Style Preview, and discussed the ups and downs of his career — from battles with drugs and alcohol, to being nominated for an Oscar for his role in Silver Linings Playbook.

Check out some excerpts from the interview below.

Cooper, on being nominated for an Oscar for his role in last year’s Silver Linings Playbook:

“Did I want to win it? I never thought that I would ever win it. So it wasn’t even a question of that.”

…on getting sober after a bad run with drugs & alcohol:

“If I continued it, I was really going to sabotage my whole life.”

…on whether or not it affected his work:

Cooper: “I mean, it has to have. And to this day, of course, because it’s a life experience. And all I do is bring life experience. That’s all anybody really does. It’s inescapable.”

GQ: But it was never like, “Oh, I didn’t show up on set.”

Cooper: “Oh no. No, no, no, no, no, no. No, never. No. You mean like, in a logistic point of view, like: ‘He’s late?’ No, no, no.”

GQ: So it was more of a personal thing—it wasn’t like work was getting fucked up?

Cooper: “No, I think work was getting fucked up.”

GQ: In what way?

Cooper: “In the way that if—the one thing that I’ve learned in life is the best thing I can do is embrace who I am and then do that to the fullest extent, and then whatever happens, happens. The more steps I do to not do that, the farther I am away from fulfilling any potential I would have. So the answer to that question, then, is: Yes, of course it hindered the work.”

…on his work after getting sober:

“I was doing these movies, and I got to meet Sandra Bullock and meet these people and work with them. And I’m sober, and I’m like, ‘Oh, I’m actually myself. And I don’t have to put on this air to be somebody else, and this person still wants to work with me? Oh, what the fuck is that about?’ I was rediscovering myself in this workplace, and it was wonderful.” He pauses. “Now, in the back of my head, or in a place of my heart of, like, creativity, did I feel utterly fulfilled? Absolutely not. But I was grateful and happy to be working, and filling that void in smaller moments.”

The January issue of GQ hits newsstands nationally on December 24.

SOURCE: Peggy Sirota/GQ