Oliver Cooper was born on December 2, 1989, in Toledo, Ohio. At the tender age of 19, he made the bold decision to leave his hometown behind and relocate to Los Angeles in 2009 to pursue a career in acting.
While taking an acting class, a fellow classmate tipped him off that Warner Brothers was on the hunt for fresh young faces to star in the Todd Phillips-produced film Project X. With no representation to speak of, Oliver enlisted the help of his friend, former child star Shaun Weiss, to secure an audition.
Judd Apatow, who had previously worked with Weiss on Heavyweights, put in a call to the casting office, and Oliver's luck began to change. With a headshot taken on a cell phone camera, he managed to land one of the lead roles in his very first audition, beating the odds and earning himself two MTV Movie Award nominations for Best Comedic Performance and Best On-Screen Dirtbag.
The success of Project X led to a supporting role in Runner Runner opposite Justin Timberlake and Ben Affleck, as well as a season arc on the popular Showtime series Californication, where he played Levon, the illegitimate son of David Duchovny and Heather Graham's characters.
In 2013, Oliver co-wrote and produced the film Four Dogs, which premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival to rave reviews and is now available to stream on Amazon Prime. He also developed a pilot for Comedy Central called The King of Chicago, which he co-wrote with Cody Oz and produced alongside Scott Stuber.
Oliver has since gone on to star in many shows and movies, including his role as Wheeler, the lovable stoner, in the three-season Amazon series Red Oaks, produced by Steven Soderbergh and directed by David Gordon Green. In 2018, he appeared in Jason Reitman's The Front Runner alongside Hugh Jackman as young campaign aid Joe Trippi, and as Todd Krizelman, co-founder of the globe.com, in Matthew Carnahan's National Geographic mini-series Valley Of The Boom.
Oliver also made a memorable appearance in season 2 of David Fincher's critically acclaimed Netflix series, Mindhunter, as infamous serial killer David Berkowitz, also known as The Son of Sam.
