RYAN BARES ALL
The Kiwi studs pills about his Rough Night
Stripping down to his underwear and giving Scarlett Johansson a lap dance was just part of the job for Kiwi actor Ryan Cooper. But even with years of modelling under his belt, he couldn’t help but feel a little nervous filming the raunchy scene for the hot new comedy Rough Night.
“Being that close and intimate with her – there were some butterflies in my belly!” laughs the 31-year-old, who went to high school in Auckland before jetting off to New York at 21.
In the film, Jess (Scarlett) and her girl gang (played by Zoë Kravitz, Ilana Glazer and Jillian Bell) hit Miami for a crazy hens’ night and hunky Ryan plays their stripper who – spoiler alert – winds up dead.
He recalls, “Every day, I would pinch myself, thinking, ‘I’m on set with one of the biggest female actresses of our time.’ I did ask Scarlett what the no-go zones were, but she just said to go for it – no holds barred!”
While it’s been fun hanging with Hollywood starlets, the actor says nothing compares to being a father. Last month, he and his wife Lizzy BarterCooper had their first child, baby girl Grace Rose.
“She’s expanding the way I look at the world,” gushes Ryan, who met his Aussie wife in Sydney in 2007. The pair wed four years ago and it’s clear the actor is still smitten when he says, “Grace is lucky to have a great mum like Liz.”
When Woman’sDay catches up with Ryan in New York, he’s in the midst of promoting
RoughNight after a morning on dad duty. “It’s been a wild day,” he says. “We were at the midwife’s, and now there’s a make-up artist coming in and people steaming clothes. My life is pretty much dirty diapers and red carpets.”
While he has an Australian passport, Ryan considers Aotearoa home after moving here as a child so his dad
could be pastor at a small Auckland church. He tells, “I’ve spent about a third of my life in New Zealand, a third in the US and a third bouncing around the world.”
But it wasn’t always going to be a life in front of the camera for Ryan, who completed a carpentry apprenticeship after graduating from Avondale College. “But then I had the opportunity to travel with modelling, so I took it,” he tells. “Then I took some acting classes and the rest is history.”
Indeed, this Kiwi star is on the rise, but he’ll always love coming home to visit his 14 nieces and nephews. Ryan recalls, “I came to visit them last Christmas and played Santa with a bunch of gifts.”