Chris Cooper was born in Kansas City, Missouri, the son of Mary Ann and Charles Cooper. Cooper attended Stephens College and the University of Missouri, where he dual majored in the school of agriculture and the school of drama. After graduation, Cooper moved to New York City to pursue his career.

His early performances include Matewan, the 1987 picture by John Sayles, and the 1989 miniseries Lonesome Dove. Some of his more notable performances include Money Train as a psychotic pyromaniac who terrifies toll booth operators, Lone Star in a rare leading role as a Texas sheriff charged with solving a decades old case, as Deputy Dwayne Looney in director Joel Schumacher's 1996 film A Time to Kill (based on the John Grisham novel), and in American Beauty as a homophobic Colonel of the United States Marine Corps (a role that garnered him a Best Supporting Actor Screen Actors Guild Award nomination). Cooper was nominated for another Screen Actors Guild Award, a BAFTA Award and won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and a Golden Globe Award in 2003 for playing the role of John Laroche in Adaptation. Cooper also appeared in The Bourne Identity in 2002 as a ruthless CIA special ops director, a role he reprised (in flashbacks) in The Bourne Supremacy. He also had a supporting role as racehorse trainer Tom Smith in Seabiscuit, receiving another Screen Actors Guild Award nomination.

Cooper is often typecast as a government/military character and has played his share of low-key heroic types as well as villains.

Cooper was busy in 2005, having appeared in three well-received and acclaimed films: Jarhead (reuniting him with American Beauty director Sam Mendes and October Sky actor Jake Gyllenhaal, Capote and Syriana. He was in the thriller Breach, playing real-life FBI operative and spy Robert Hanssen. Cooper said that his belief was that Breach was the "first studio film where they've considered me the lead" actor.

He appeared as a government agent in dangerous territory alongside Jamie Foxx Ashraf Barhom, Jennifer Garnerand Jason Batemanin the action thriller The Kingdom.