Hot off his praiseworthy performance in “American Hustle,” Bradley Cooper puts on his best dapper attire for a too cool fashion spread for the January issue of GQ Magazine. Inside the issue, Cooper opens up about his bumpy climb up the acting ladder and his bout with drugs and alcohol.

On his fight against alcoholism:
“If I continued it, I was really going to sabotage my whole life. I mean it has to have [affected my work]. And to this day, of course, because it’s a life experience. And all I do is bring life experience. That’s all anybody does. It’s inescapable. [Work was getting f***ed up] in a way that if- the one thing that I’ve learned in life is the best thing I can do is embrace who I am and then do that to the fullest extent, and then whatever happens, happens. The more steps I do to not do that, the farther I am away from fulfilling any potential I would have. Yes, of course it hindered the work.”

On his film choices after getting sober:
“I was doing these movies, and I got to meet Sandra Bullock and meet these people and work with them. And I’m sober, and I’m like, ‘Oh, I’m actually myself. And I don’t have to put on this air to be somebody else, and this person still wants to work with me? Oh, what the fuck is that about?’ I was rediscovering myself in this workplace, and it was wonderful. Now, in the back of my head, or in a place of my heart of, like, creativity, did I feel utterly fulfilled? Absolutely not. But I was grateful and happy to be working, and filling that void in smaller moments.”

On his role on “Alias”:
“I would only work three days a week. And then for the second season, I got even more sidelined. I was like, ‘Ugh.’ And then next thing you know, I was like, ‘I want to f***ing kill myself.’ J.J. [Abrams] was like, ‘Okay.’ He probably would’ve fired me, anyway.”

On his nomination for “Silver Linings Playbook:
“Did I want to win it? I never thought that I would ever win it. So it wasn’t even a question of that.”