Why Bradley Cooper almost quit ‘The Place Beyond the Pines’: ‘I’m out’

Bradley almost bounced.

Derek Cianfrance, who directed and co-wrote the crime drama “The Place Beyond the Pines,” revealed that Bradley Cooper nearly bowed out of the production after disagreeing on a script rewrite.

According to Cianfrance, 50, the “Maestro” star hated the fact that in the updated script — this time co-written by Darius Marder — his character Avery Cross killed an empathetic thief (Ryan Gosling) halfway through the film.

“I had given [Darius] the script and he had a lot of notes for it, and I kind of agreed with a lot of what he was saying. And so we rewrote every word from 10 weeks to six weeks,” the director told IndieWire.

“I remember giving Bradley Cooper the copy of ‘The Place Beyond the Pines,’ the new script, and getting a voice message from him saying, ‘Bro, I just want to let you know I read the new draft and I’m out.’”

According to the director, Cooper, 49, claimed that the new script was “not the movie that we had signed up to do.”

Unfortunately for Cianfrance, he had very little negotiating power as the film was partly funded by Cooper’s involvement.

“I was moving my family up to Schenectady the next day [to be on location] and the whole crew was coming up there. I had all the money anyway,” Cianfrance recalled, adding that he asked Cooper to join him for a face-to-face meeting.

“So I went up to Montreal, and I had a long conversation with him from midnight to 3:30 in the morning where I got him back on,” he said. “It was only in the last five minutes [when I convinced him]. I think he just got tired. He wanted to go to bed.”

In the film, Cross apprehends Luke Glanton (Gosling) while the latter flees on foot from an attempted bank robbery while trying to provide for his son.

The heist culminates with Glanton shooting Cross in the leg while the cop manages to shoot Glanton in the stomach, causing him to fall out of a window to his death.

Later in the film, Glanton’s son, Jason, befriends A.J., the rebellious son of Cross, who is attempting to secure the position of Attorney General.

In addition to both Cooper and Gosling, the film also stars Ben Mendelsohn, Mahershala Ali, Ray Liotta, Rose Bryne and Gosling’s partner, Eva Mendes.

The film was the second time that Cianfrance had worked with Gosling as the two filmed the 2010 film “Blue Valentine” just prior.

According to the director, Gosling told him in 2007 that he had a fantasy that involved “robbing a bank, on a motorcycle, and then making a very specific getaway.”

Cianfrance later told Cinema Review that he told Gosling: “‘You’ve got to be kidding me, I’m writing that movie right now.’” 

Gosling and Cianfrance were set to reunite for a third time in the 2025 supernatural horror film “Wolf Fan,” however, the “Notebook” star and the “Sound of Metal” director have both since pulled out of the project.

Christopher Abbott took over the werewolf thriller in Gosling’s absence, though it is still unclear who will direct.