Scott Cooper kind of strikes you as an actor when you first meet him. Young and well-groomed and impeccably dressed, with a soft speaking voice and an uncanny ability to use your name in a sentence, you can tell he's a guy used to charming people for a living. But lately he's been using those charms for something a lot more difficult than wooing a casting agent-- he had to convince financiers, studios and the one, the only Jeff Bridges that he could handle a directing job, and endure a series of distribution disasters in order to get his movie, Crazy Heart, to the screen.

Once doomed to a fate on the DVD shelves when Paramount Vantage shut down, Crazy Heart is now a serious entry in the fall awards race, with Bridges' performance as alcoholic country singer Bad Blake a near-lock for the Best Actor Oscar. Cooper, who grew up listening to country music and initially wanted to make a Merle Haggard biopic, said that Bridges was his only choice for the role. Check out my interview with him below, in which he talks about his relationship to country music, why Bridges was the only guy for the role, and what all the Oscar buzz means to him as a first-time director. Crazy Heart is open in limited release right now.