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Cooper, the protagonist of Christopher Nolan's Interstellar, is a former NASA pilot now working as a farmer as conditions on Earth deteriorate from the horrifying combined effects of climate change and crop blights. At the beginning of the film, Cooper repeatedly expresses a strong sense of dissatisfaction at humanity’s declining ambition and their lost opportunities. He frequently mentions his frustration at the narrowed focus that contemporary society takes on subsistence farming, especially at the expense of scientific progress and exploration. He feels that his children are not being taught about the best parts of the human experience, but their teachers insist that focusing on life on Earth is more practical. 

One of Cooper’s core motivations is his love for his children. He’s warm, funny, and patient in his interactions with them. Cooper recognizes Murph’s exceptional intellect and potential, and he fears that the bleak future awaiting Earth will stifle the life she could have led. His concern is sharpened by comparison to his son Tom, who seems more content to accept the world as it is, while Murph is driven to question, explore, and push beyond it. Rather than telling Murph to focus on farming, Cooper encourages her curiosity and engages fully with her scientific questions even when they conflict with her school’s NASA-denying curriculum. He also teaches Murph and Tom about the technology that occasionally cruises down into the atmosphere around their part of the Midwest, letting his kids help him pirate a former Indian military drone that they plan to harvest solar cells from. Cooper’s bond with Murph lays the foundation for her later role in saving humanity. His unwavering faith in her gave her the confidence to believe she could accomplish the impossible—and she did.  

When Cooper is offered the chance to pilot the Endurance mission in search of a new home for humankind, he is torn between his duty to his family and his obligation to the wider world. His deep commitment to securing a future for humanity—and for his own children—conflicts with his instinct to stay and be present in their lives. Cooper loves his children fiercely, and choosing to leave them is a devastating sacrifice on his part. He knows that staying behind means he’s sentencing his family to die in the dust storms or starve to death from the lack of crops, but leaving means abandoning them to years of uncertainty, grief, and growing up without him. He departs for space knowing there’s little chance he’ll ever see them again; he saves their future, but he breaks their hearts and his own heart in the process.  

Cooper has a remarkably cool head under pressure, and his quick thinking and resourcefulness repeatedly prove vital to the Endurance mission’s survival. He stays calm in life-threatening situations—most notably during the high-risk docking maneuver after Dr. Mann’s failed attempt to commandeer the Endurance, and again when using Gargantua’s gravity to slingshot the ship toward Edmunds’ planet. Cooper is highly capable in a crisis, balancing logic with instinct. He also shows deep care for his crewmates, often prioritizing their safety and emotional well-being over his own. At the same time, he doesn’t shy away from making difficult decisions—such as overriding Brand’s objections to land on Mann’s planet—when he believes the greater good is at stake.  

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