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Despite iVillage's fierce campaign to make Muppets star Jason Segel this year's Sexiest Man Alive, People magazine has bestowed that title on another -- though no less worthy -- movie star: Bradley Cooper.
Cooper, 36, starred in one of the year's top-grossing movies -- The Hangover Part II -- and blossomed into a true leading man with his charismatic turn in the surprise hit Limitless. In addition, he's signed on to star in a list of impressive projects, including David O. Russell's The Silver Linings Playbook and an adaptation of John Milton's Paradise Lost (in which he'll play Lucifer, by the way).
That said, Cooper's impressive filmography isn't the main reason he snagged People's Sexiest Man Alive honors. In addition to being a Georgetown grad, a good cook and -- as we all learned this year -- fluent in French, Cooper is also a charmer, a modest guy and a momma's boy.
In fact, his reaction to finding out that he had earned the top spot on People's list has got to be one of the sweetest things we've read in a while.
"(The) first thing I thought was, 'My mother is going to be so happy,'" he says. Aww.
Unfortunately, in the midst of all this happiness, Cooper also had a few unhappy moments this year as well. His father Charles passed away in January, and only a few months later he split from his longtime girlfriend Renee Zellweger.
Since, the gossip hounds have romantically linked him to Jennifer Aniston, Olivia Wilde and Jennifer Lopez -- but for now he describes himself as a "single 36-year-old male." And he's cool with that.
"If you're a single man and you happen to be in this business you're deemed a player," Cooper says. "But I don't see myself as a ladies' man."
Even better, Cooper's disarmingly modest about his own looks.
"I think it's really cool that a guy who doesn't look like a model can have this (title)," he says. "I think I'm a decent-looking guy. Sometimes I can look great, and other times I look horrifying."
Joining Cooper on People's list of sexy male stars were 11 other stars, including Hunger Games actor Liam Hemsworth, Mr. Captain America Chris Evans and, unsurprisingly, 2011 "it guy" -- and probably Cooper's stiffest competition for the title -- Ryan Gosling.
