Hollywood hunk Bradley Cooper still down to earth amid Hangover success "The Hangover Part III" reunites Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis and Justin Bartha as Phil, Stu, Alan and Doug for the finale to the highly successful comedy trilogy. Joining the starring cast is John Goodman. Sobering moment: Zach Galifianakis, Ed Helms, Bradley Cooper and Ken Jeong in The Hangover Part III. THIS tells you something about Bradley Cooper. It's Mother's Day weekend in a blisteringly hot Las Vegas, and Cooper, whose career is equally blistering, has not been out trawling the city's various clubs (as Phil, his character in The Hangover franchise, would have) but is instead hanging out with "the women in my life - my mother, and my dog. They're here with me. The night before, Cooper had taken his mother, Gloria, and friends (he won't say if "friends" included his model girlfriend Suki Waterhouse) to see Elton John at Caesars Palace (the scene of many a crime during The Hangover). The Rolling Stones were playing up the road at the MGM Grand, which Cooper was desperate to get to, but his mum preferred Elton John. So that's what they did. "Bradley is a great son, he makes the rest of us look terrible," says Cooper's Hangover co-star Zach Galifianakis, "and I'm quoting my mother." Cooper is in Vegas to talk about the final instalment of his star-making franchise - The Hangover Part III. Today, he's sporting long dark hair and a beard for his latest role in the 1970s cop drama, American Hustle. It's a different look for him. "This look?" he asks, smiling. What, the tired look? Although Cooper has perfected the art of playing, in his words, "douchebags," there's something inherently decent about him that, aside from his not-too-shabby looks, makes women swoon and men wish they were a little bit like him. He puts it down to "not being an overnight sensation at 21." Cooper is quite clear that he had a life before "this." I've lived many lives and had many jobs that have had nothing to do with acting. He once worked at a hotel where it was his job to keep candles burning. At 38, he says, his career has been a slow build. There haven't been amazing highs, but there haven't been amazing lows; it's just sort of been steady. People think now, with success, I get every role I want, but I'm still passed over. One of those being the Tom Buchanan role in The Great Gatsby, which he auditioned for twice, before it ultimately went to Joel Edgerton - after Ben Affleck passed. "I wanted it very badly," Cooper says. I was disappointed. Still, though he may downplay it, over the past couple of years Cooper's career has gone rocketing into the stratosphere, particularly since he first stepped into the shoes of Phil, alongside Galifianakis, Ed Helms and Justin Bartha in The Hangover in 2009. The first film made them all superstars. Now, as the third and final instalment arrives, Cooper sees it as the end of an era. "I've loved playing Phil," he says, "but I'm ready to say goodbye to it. I like to embrace change. Indeed, The Hangover may have given him stardom, but his Academy Award-nominated turn as the troubled Pat in Silver Linings Playbook, and subsequently, his critically acclaimed performance in The Place Beyond the Pines, have given him credibility. "It's harder to put me in a box now," says Cooper. Like, 'Oh, he's just the guy in The Hangover'. I think Place Beyond the Pines and Silver Linings Playbook both doing as well as they did, and being so different from each other and from The Hangover, at least allowed me the opportunity to meet with directors that I wouldn't have met with before because they just thought I was the guy from The Hangover. He says his life hasn't changed since the nomination. It's been the same, really. I'm just working, living my life; it's not that different. He will say the awards season was "a wonderful experience." His favourite memory of the day of the Oscars was meeting up with his friend and mentor Robert De Niro, as well as Daniel Day Lewis, and their families and travelling to the event together. We took photos and then went together. I mean, that was unbelievable to me - that was the best part of the whole thing," he says. But other than that, then you wake up the next day, and you go to work and everything's the same. Cooper says he reckons he's a "masochist" for following an acting career - he graduated with honours in English at university. The utter rejection of it? I have to be. He says as his star has risen, he's developed a bad habit of looking himself up online. He can't help himself. "You can get pockets of being obsessed with it, and it's not healthy, it's very narcissistic," he says. It's interesting, there comes a point when it just stops hurting. And that's a very empowering time when that happens and then you start to realise, well, that's a waste of time. But it speaks to the fears that you have. They're telling you that you're crap, and deep down you might even think you're crap. But there's a lot of good stuff on there, surely. Is there? I haven't found it. Cooper says he's in the best place he's ever been. Well, there's just not as much turmoil inside. One thing that success affords you is the room to do what you love to do, whatever that is - to work and create and collaborate and listen to and develop, and not just be so 'aaargh' all the time. These days, he says he's very much at peace with where his life's at. It's very easy to find peace because it puts me in a state of gratitude. I've found peace more in the past year-and-a-half than I have in my whole life," he says. It's getting to a place where I'm happy where I'm at, but the key is to be happy no matter what. It's easier to be happy when you're successful. SEE: The Hangover Part III - opens today.