Sex and the City star reveals lie Bradley Cooper told to land guest role

Sex and the City star Cynthia Nixon has spilled the beans on the big fib the Oscar-nominated star told to land his role on the show.

Bradley Cooper made his acting debut on Sex and the City as Jake.

Bradley Cooper is now one of Hollywood’s leading men, but back when he was starting out, he reportedly told a desperate lie to land his first ever role.

Sex and the City star Cynthia Nixon appeared on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen recently, where she spilled on Cooper’s appearance in season two of the hit series, which aired in 1999.

Cooper played Jake in the 1999 episode.

He was required to drive a manual car – which posed a bit of an issue.

The Oscar-nominated actor played Jake, a fleeting love interest for Carrie Bradshaw (played by Sarah Jessica Parker), in the episode “They Shoot Single People, Don’t They?”.

As Nixon described on WWHL, Cooper’s role required him to drive a vintage car with a manual transmission – a skill that the actor hadn’t really nailed yet.

“He told them he knew how to drive a stick because it was his first job and he was desperate to get it,” Nixon said. “And then the time came for him to pull out, and he was like, ‘I don’t know how to drive a stick.’”

Cooper at the 2022 Met Gala. Picture: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue

Cooper himself opened up about the fib in an interview with Backstage in 2012, admitting he’d gone for lessons at a New York driving school but was thrown off when it came time for actual filming.

“I thought it went well when I learned on a Volkswagen, but then I was driving a 1962 Porsche convertible where the clutch was as if I was driving a bus,” he said.

“And I had Sarah Jessica Parker in the passenger seat.”

Of course, Cooper managed to get through the scene – and added that the experience helped confirm his desire to be an actor.

“I felt the same way I did when I first went onstage and performed,” he said.

“I went, ‘I feel at home here.’ It was 2:30 in the morning, they blocked off 14th Street in Manhattan, and there were, like, a hundred people screaming for Sarah Jessica. I was like, ‘This is the imaginary world that I love watching in theatres.’ I loved it.”