For most of last spring, if one actor's name was linked to the feature adaptation of "Green Lantern" more than any other it was probably Bradley Cooper.  We all now know the result of the infamous three-way battle to play the Lantern between Cooper, Justin Timberlake and Ryan Reynolds - Reynolds won.  But what we didn't know until last night was why Bradley Cooper was at such a distinct disadvantage when it came to securing the role of Hal Jordan.  Cooper confessed to Conan O'Brien that he had a really, really bad audition.  Find out just how bad after the jump.

Bradley Cooper was on Wednesday's "The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien" to promote "All About Steve", his long-delayed romantic comedy with Sandra Bullock.  Since most people already know what they're getting with a movie like "Steve", the talk quickly turned to Cooper's other projects - including his role as Face in Joe Carnahan's "The A-Team" and to his missed opportunity at playing superhero in "Green Lantern".

According to Cooper, his audition technique was to mimic Christian Bale's voice from the recent "Batman" movies.  And, as the Bat-voice is the one element of "The Dark Knight" that fans everywhere seem to hate, Cooper's decision was probably ill-advised.

Here's the whole "Tonight Show" exchange:

Conan: There's a "Green Lantern" movie that's coming out... and there's a rumor that you tried out for the part of the Green Lantern

Cooper: I did, which was amazing to even get a chance... (but) I couldn't NOT do Christian Bale "Batman" when I was doing the audition, I don't know what it was... the director was like, "OK Bradley this time just be regular" and I was like "yeah, yeah,yeah I got it" and then...

...and then you should really watch the clip to catch the rest.