Actor Bradley Cooper graduated from Georgetown University in 1997 with a bachelor of arts degree in English.

You'd think he'd be rooting for the Hoyas on Friday as they play Virginia Commonwealth in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

But Cooper, who is out promoting his new movie "Limitless," is actually rooting for hometown team Villanova, which plays George Mason on Friday. Born in Philadelphia, the 36-year-old Cooper went to college there as a freshman before transferring. In fact, his dad played basketball for Villanova.

So why transfer? It's easier to let him explain:

"It was all because of a girl. Mind you, I didn't even really know the girl. As a freshman in high school, I met this really hot girl who was a senior. In her yearbook, she put down that she was going to Georgetown University. So when I was graduated, I applied to Georgetown and I didn't get in. But I'm stubborn. So even after a year at Villanova, I applied to get into Georgetown. By this time, the girl had already graduated from there, but I decided to go there anyway. She had curly blonde hair and she was beautiful. I wanted to walk with her down those cobblestone streets in D.C. Listen, I had it in my head to go to Georgetown and I wasn't going to be denied."

The same can be said for Cooper as an actor. He still remembers living in a one-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles in the late 1990s and "not one girl giving me the time of day." (That's hard to believe.) And auditioning and auditioning. "I was a ghost in Los Angeles when I first got out there," he said.

But now, with breakout roles in "Wedding Crashers" and the "Hangover" series of movies, Cooper is ready to tackle a leading role and that's what he's doing in "Limitless," which opens Friday.

The movie, which co-stars Robert DeNiro, is about an unsuccessful writer (Cooper) whose life is transformed by a top secret drug that allows him to use 100 percent of his brain and become a perfect version of himself. His enhanced abilities soon attract shadowy forces that threaten his life.

With this movie and the release of highly anticipated "The Hangover: Part II" in May, Cooper still doesn't feel he's made it in Hollywood.

"There is no top of this profession," Cooper said. "I'm just waiting for someone to walk over to me and say, 'Wake up.'"