Bradley Cooper used to think chefs "were like rock stars."
Bradley Cooper at the 'Burnt' premiere in London
The 'Burnt' star, who plays a newly-sober and extremely ambitious chef in the film, says he initially wanted to carve out a career in the kitchen, but gave up on his dream because the pressure is "too insane."
He said: "I just sort of thought it was cool and that chefs were cool when I was a kid and I just thought that chefs were like rock stars. So I thought maybe I'd be a chef but then I realised really early it's too hard. The pressure is too insane. I also thought I wanted to be a ninja, you know what I mean, but then I realised that I only wanted to play them in movies."
Bradley still enjoys cooking and credits his grandmother for teaching him all of his kitchen skills.
The 40-year-old star told E! News: "I've always been fascinated about food. Growing up in an Italian household, my grandmother was an incredible cook and we just grew up with basically food being all that we talked about. You either talked about what you were going to eat, what you just ate, and what you're going to eat tomorrow.
"So it's just something that always came natural to me and then I started working as a prep cook for an Italian restaurant Mirabella's. The head chef there was a 21-year-old guy, who had just come back from Paris...and I was just sort of in awe of him and I would always ask him to teach me stuff."
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