KEY POINTS:
It's nearly lunchtime in LA and Bradley Cooper is getting hungry. Again. "Actually, I was just looking at my clock and thinking about lunch. I ate 10 minutes ago but I love food more than just about anything."
That's a good thing, because as the star of Kitchen
Confidential, Cooper does a lot of eating.
"You can slowly see me gain weight throughout the show. There's something about cooking and being around all those colours and smells all day that keeps you alive. I know that sounds cheesy but when you're in a kitchen all day cooking, it's hard to be in a bad mood."
Even so, you could forgive him for moodiness. His character Jack is based on Anthony Bourdain, the show on the notoriously hard-living chef's memoirs, Kitchen Confidential. Bourdain's advice in the book to budding chefs is, "Show up at work on time six months in a row and we'll talk about red curry paste and lemon grass. Until then, I have four words for you: 'Shut the [expletive] up'."
Although Jack's dialogue has been cleaned up for network television, he shares Bourdain's morally dubious kitchen manner and bad-boy sex appeal.
He's a sharp-tongued, big egoed, short-tempered talent who runs a New York restaurant. Like a perfectly seared steak, the show is hot, juicy, and occasionally, bloody.
Thanks to his wild streak, Jack has lost his reputation as one of New York's best chefs and winds up working a crappy job at a pizza joint with his girlfriend.
When he is offered the chance to redeem himself by taking on the top job at a famous restaurant, he has to cobble together a team of chefs, waiters, help, and a menu in less than 48 hours. Then his girlfriend walks out.
The show's topic is universally appealing (cuisine), stars hot actors (including former model Jaime King whose dizzy waitress Tanya, says Jack, puts the "ho" in "hostess"), and has ready-made storylines from a best-selling memoir.
So it's no wonder Kitchen Confidential was touted as one of the hit shows of the season alongside My Name is Earl when it debuted in the US last year. But ratings were lukewarm and it was cancelled part-way through the first season.
Says Jack of his recipe for failure: "Take one part natural talent, two parts stellar education, mix with easy success and a generous helping of booze, drugs, and women, and immediately set on fire."
Many actors would be loath to help promote a show given the circumstances but Cooper says he's thrilled an audience will finally get to see it in its entirety.
"Obviously I was disappointed that only three or four of them aired. I think it was down to how we were marketed by Fox, our timeslot. There were so many things out of our dictating how successful the show was going to be."
Things are looking good for Cooper, who, before Kitchen Confidential was best known for his role as Will Tippin in Alias.
He's just wrapped Case 39 with Renee Zellweger and is now shooting Older than America, about a native reservation in Minnesota. And he's just announced his engagement to actor Jennifer Esposito (Spin City, Crash).
But if he had it his way, he'd still be playing Jack Bourdain. "He was one of the easier characters to play because he was so real; he just seems so human.
"We all have a pride and ego that overtakes us but then we also want to be liked. The guy is extremely intelligent too. He's basically grappling with his demons and at his core he's a good guy who gets caught up in the trivial stuff: his reputation, pride, ego. I could certainly relate to that."
* Kitchen Confidential tonight, 8pm, TV3