Anderson Cooper
Anderson Cooper is an actor, born 1967.
Cooper graduated from Yale in 1989 and then did the thing that sounds reckless in hindsight: travelled to war-torn regions on his own, shot footage, and sold it to Channel One News. ABC News hired him as a correspondent in 1995 and then could not decide what he was, trying him as a co-anchor, a reality game show host and a fill-in on morning talk inside a few years.
CNN settled the question. Anderson Cooper 360 has anchored his working life since 2003, and for two decades he carried a second job as a 60 Minutes correspondent, which is an unusual double, since nightly cable news and long-form magazine reporting reward almost opposite instincts. There are News and Documentary Emmys on the record.
What this page collects is stranger than a journalism career. Cooper appears in films and series constantly as himself, and the credits sort into three piles: documentaries he is interviewed for, like Blackfish; fiction that borrows a real anchor to make an invented event feel reported, like Chappie and The 33; and archive footage lifted into other people's films because his face is what American breaking news looks like. Then there are the talk-show couches, Colbert and Watch What Happens Live, plus a competitive streak that put him on Jeopardy! as a host and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire as a contestant.
It adds up to a filmography for a man who has essentially never played anyone but himself.
Movies (8)
TV (21)
- Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen (2009)
- The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (2015)
- Jeopardy! (1984)
- LIVE with Kelly and Mark (1988)
- 60 Minutes (1968)
- Iron Chef America (2005)
- Anderson Cooper 360° (2003)
- Finding Your Roots (2012)
- The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer (2005)
- Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (2020)
- The Problem with Jon Stewart (2021)
- The Howard Stern Interview (2006)
- The New York Times Presents (2020)
- Coronavirus, Explained (2020)
- What's Next? The Future with Bill Gates (2024)
- Anderson Cooper Full Circle (2018)
- At This Hour with Kate Bolduan (2014)
- CNN Special Report (1980)
- Visible: Out on Television (2020)
- Generation Gap (2022)
- Larry King Live (1985)
Where to start with Anderson Cooper
Skip the archive-footage credits; they are padding on any page like this. Blackfish is the one that matters, a documentary that changed an industry, and his interview segments are doing real work inside it.
The 33 and Chappie show the other use directors have for him, which is borrowing his credibility to sell a fictional event, and Chappie is the funnier example. A Choice of Weapons: Inspired by Gordon Parks and Visible: Out on Television are the documentaries where he participates rather than presides. Finding Your Roots puts him on the other side of the questions and is the most revealing thing here. For the day job, Anderson Cooper 360° and 60 Minutes are the actual body of work, and everything else is a guest chair.