Actor turned writer-director Scott Cooper debuted in Hollywood with a minor role in the spy-comedy Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999). Subsequently, he appeared in supporting roles in films like Gods and Generals (2003) and Get Low (2009) before making his directorial debut with the acclaimed drama film Crazy Heart (2009), which he also wrote. The movie, which won its lead actor Jeff Bridges an Academy Award that year, also earned Cooper several accolades including a Chicago Film Critics Association Award nomination for Most Promising Filmmaker.

Subsequently, Cooper co-wrote and directed the thriller Out of the Furnace (2013), which starred Christian Bale and Woody Harrelson and opened to mixed reviews. The biographical crime-drama Black Mass (2015), which starred Johnny Depp as the American mobster James "Whitey" Bulger, was Cooper's third directorial, which opened to positive reviews and did well at the box office. In 2017, the director wrote and co-produced the Western film Hostiles, which starred Christian Bale, Rosamund Pike and Wes Studi in the lead roles. Besides films, Cooper has also appeared as an actor in tv shows like The X-Files and The District.