Bradley Cooper Writes Drama in First 'The Words' Trailer (Video)

Bradley Cooper is getting pretty good at playing a tortured writer.

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Bradley Cooper Returns to 'Elephant Man' Role

Though best known for his glib partier role in The Hangover franchise, Cooper returns to the shabby shoes of an unpublished novelist in the upcoming drama The Words. Cooper also played an unsuccessful scribe in 2011's Limitless; in that film, he takes an experimental drug that turns him into a prolific genius and suffers the consequences, while in writer-directors Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal's new film, he plagarizes an old forgotten manuscript -- and begins to suffer the consequences.

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Zoe Saldana co-stars as Cooper's girlfriend, while J.K. Simmons plays his father. Jeremy Irons, Dennis Quaid and Olivia Wilde also star.

The film was the subject of a hot bidding war at Sundance, where it eventually went for $2 million with a $1.5 million P&A commitment.

Cooper will star this summer alongside Dax Shepard and Kristin Bell in Hit and Run, and will later be seen in director David O. Russell's The Silver Linings Playbook with Jennifer Lawrence. He will later feature with Lawrence in Serena.