Robert Pattinson vs. Dominic Cooper on Verge of Vampire Showdown?

Find out what the Mamma Mia! star tells us about his maybe-upcoming role as an immortal blood sucker. Plus, what's up with a sequel to that ABBA movie musical?

By Marc Malkin Jan 26, 2011 4:59 PMTags
Robert Pattinson, Dominic CooperJemal Countess/Getty Images; Charley Gallay/Getty Images

Is Mamma Mia! hotness Dominic Cooper getting ready to give Robert Pattinson a run for his bloodsucking Twilight money?

Reports claim that Cooper is set to star as an ordinary man who becomes a vampire in the upcoming thriller Hello Darkness. Nothing's official yet, but…

"I would like to play some sort of vampire," Cooper told me yesterday at the Bing Bar at the Sundance Film Festival, where he was promoting The Devil's Double. "I think it's important everyone plays a vampire. Especially being influenced by The Lost Boys growing up as well and being able to quote most of the film and sing most of the songs, I feel I should."

Sofie Silbermann / Anchor Bay Entertainment

That said, it's not like Cooper is hurting for work. He plays photographer Milton Greene with Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe in the upcoming My Week With Marilyn. "She was brilliant," Cooper said of the Blue Valentine Oscar nominee's performance. "She did a lot of the work. It was amazing to watch the transformation."

He's also in Captain America playing Iron Man's father, Howard Stark. In The Devil's Double, he takes a sadistic turning starring as Saddam Hussein's late son, Uday, opposite French actress Ludivine Sagnier.

Everything I read about him or learned about him, just seemed like pure evil," Cooper said. "It seems he stemmed from a very volatile, dangerous, monstrous place. That's one thing I always said to [director Lee Tamahori]: ‘How am I going to be this person when I can find nothing I like about him? Nothing! He's just disgusting on every level.'"

And then, of course, there's the lingering question of whether we'll ever see a sequel to Mamma Mia!.

"I know that there are loads and loads more songs that could be sung, but I'm not sure," Cooper said. "Where would the story go? It would have to be a prequel."

And speaking of prequels, when I mentioned the scoop I broke recently about a Dynasty movie being developed as a prequel of the classic 1980s prime-time soap, Cooper smiled, "I have to be a part of that."