It took a few years, but Bradley Cooper finally had the last laugh on his American Hustle co-star Louis C.K.
A new video making the rounds disproves C.K.'s long-ago assertion that those students who ask celebrities questions on Inside The Actors Studio never actually become famous themselves.
Back in 2008, C.K. was a guest on the radio program The Steve Show, hosted by British comic Stephen Merchant, where he speculated that the budding actors who ask A-list stars questions at the end of their sit-down with host James Lipton were doomed to obscurity.
Specifically, C.K. said, "That's it, you'll never be famous. There's no way you ask Sean Penn a question and then you're gonna be huge."
But that's exactly what happened to Cooper.
Circulated via Reddit, the newly released video rewinds the clock all the way back to 1999, when a shaggy-haired young thespian named Bradley Cooper was present at an ITAS taping and was given the opportunity to pose a question to none other than Sean Penn.
As everyone now knows, Cooper has gone on to impressive acting fame having been nominated for two Oscars – for the 2012 drama The Silver Linings Playbook and appearing opposite C.K. in American Hustle.
In the 1999 clip, Cooper shyly takes the mike and says, "Hey, Mr. Penn. I'm Bradley Cooper, a second-year actor. My question is regarding [the 1998 indie film] Hurlyburly."
Cooper continued, "What was it like to revisit a character, Eddie, after a 10-year hiatus? Did you have new discoveries? Did you find that it was a different approach, because you had already done this character before?" (Penn had previously played the character onstage).
Penn responds by saying, "Yes it was the first time I had done a film of something that I had done a play of. I think Marlon Brando once said, 'A play is something just shy of a film's rehearsal…"
The episode profiling Penn originally aired in January, 1999. In later episodes of ITAS, Cooper was allowed to put questions to Oscar-winners Robert De Niro and Steven Spielberg.
And perhaps the sweetest payback of all: By March, 2011, Cooper had graduated from the Actors Studio Drama School and was the main attraction in his very own episode of Inside The Actors Studio.
Try and top that, Louis.