Long before Bradley Cooper made his big screen début in “Wet Hot American Summer,” and before he played Phil Wenneck, the wise-ass Jägermeister-swilling schoolteacher in “The Hangover,” he wanted to direct. Moreover, he wanted to conduct.
Growing up in the Philadelphia suburbs, Cooper got into his head that he wanted to conduct an orchestra someday. As he told me recently in an interview for The New Yorker Radio Hour, his most prized possession as a kid was a conductor’s baton. He used to flail his arms for hours at home to great symphonies. You can now see Cooper, aged forty-eight, on the podium at the Ely Cathedral, while the London Symphony Orchestra saws away at Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony. The film is “Maestro,” and Cooper plays Leonard Bernstein, the great conductor, composer, and teacher—a figure who peaked during the era of rock and roll and yet was not eclipsed by it. Somehow, he never seemed any less contemporary than Chuck Berry or John Lennon, and never condescended to them, either.
At the core of “Maestro” is Bernstein’s marriage to Felicia Montealegre, an accomplished actor, who married Bernstein knowing full well that he was bisexual, radically inconstant, and consumed with his art. Carey Mulligan’s performance as Felicia will almost certainly compete for an Oscar. Cooper’s as Bernstein is no less impressive, and it is a wonder that he manages to play such a self-consumed and art-consumed character with such unerring focus while being the film’s auteur, its director, co-producer, and co-writer. It is, like Bernstein himself, a project of extreme passion and wildness. I went to see it expecting kitsch, and left moved to the core. Cooper and I spoke recently; our conversation was edited for length and clarity.
This is an extraordinary performance and piece of writing and directing, and you have been living this for I don’t know how many years. What’s the origin story of “Maestro”?
I would have to date it back to being a child inundated with cartoons in front of the television––Tom and Jerry and Bugs Bunny conducting. We had a record player in the living room that would always have classical music on. That was the first time I realized that you could move your hand up and down and have sound come out. I became absolutely obsessed with the idea of that magical power.
It must be narcotic.
It really felt that way as a kid. I asked Santa Claus that coming Christmas for a baton.
How old were you?
I must’ve been between six and eight. And I still remember when it showed up. I kept it in my college dorm; in grad school, it was sort of like a totem for me. Ellen Burstyn came and did a workshop for four weeks, and the assignment was to create a character. I wrote a monologue for a conductor. And so it was always something that was inside of me, since I was a kid. I spent hundreds of hours, David, conducting music that I loved as a child.
So six and a half years ago, Steven Spielberg was perhaps going to do a bio-pic about Leonard Bernstein. We had been friends, and he happened to know about my obsession with conducting. He said, “Would you read this script, and would you ever consider playing Bernstein?” I was in postproduction on “A Star Is Born,” and I had found that I felt most centered artistically when writing and directing. I really had no desire to do anything other than that. He wasn’t going to direct it. I said, “Listen, would you let me sort of investigate and see if there’s a script that I could write, a story that I feel like I could tell, that would allow me to enter into it and conduct?”
But wasn’t there an existing script at that point?
There was an existing script, by Josh Singer, who came on board, and we wrote a new script together.
So what did you do next?
The rights to the music were about to lapse, for Paramount, which had the movie at the time. I had to go and meet the three [Bernstein] children––Nina, Alex, and Jamie––and try to convince them to trust me enough to give me the rights to the music.
I showed them the movie “A Star is Born,” and I said, “This is a very big fire burning inside me . . . and I won’t ever make a move that I don’t believe in.” And they said yes.
The center of the film is the relationship between husband and wife, Leonard Bernstein and Felicia Montealegre, and it’s a very complicated one. Why did you go for that as opposed to some other aspect of Bernstein’s life?
I had no desire to make a bio-pic. You can make an incredible documentary about the man—and some had been made already—because of the sheer amount of primary footage out there. But I also wanted to do right by his impact. I thought that I could convey his achievements through means other than just story. For example, I felt like I could take care of that part of his legacy by having the whole movie scored to his music.
This was not a cheap movie. How much was the final budget in the end?
We wound up going under what I had asked Netflix. I think I asked them for ninety million, and I think we were shy of that at the end. Which is an enormous amount of money for a movie that’s half black-and-white, shot on 35-mm. black-and-white film.
It also must be a difficult thing to walk into certain rooms in Los Angeles and say, I want ninety million to do this film, which is about a dead classical music conductor and composer, as opposed to something that’s more familiar to them. How many nos did you get?
It started at Paramount. They said no. Warner Bros. said no. Apple said no. I don’t think we ever made it to Sony. Scott Stuber at Netflix—I sat down with him, he looked at me, he said, “This is absolutely nuts, but your enthusiasm is infectious, and I’m going to trust you. I trust filmmakers that I believe in.”
You’re not chopped liver—you’re Bradley Cooper, and you’re going into some of the biggest offices in L.A. What is the language you get for “no”—what does it sound like?
Well, I have no problem asking for and pitching something that I believe in. And “no” is something you become so well acquainted with. But Warner Bros. was a tough no—that was the one that hurt a little bit. I had made “A Star is Born” there, and “American Sniper” and “Joker,” and I just thought, Oh, trust me, guys. Even if it doesn’t work, I don’t think it’ll look bad for you because I’ve been so successful for you in the past, on projects that were also very risky.
So what was their explanation for “no”?
I think it was nothing other than logical. It made sense, what they were saying. It’s a huge budget. It’s a subject that no one will be interested in, and we just can’t justify it.
The first thing that I heard about this film, other than the ambient knowledge that it was happening, was this business of the makeup, and should a non-Jewish guy be playing a Jewish guy? And is the nose too big? And so on. Was there a serious conversation about prosthetics?
Well, what you’re speaking of actually came out after we had made the movie. When that came out, I never questioned myself, because all I poured into this project was love. I made this movie with love, and I worked as hard as I could possibly work with love––and so did everybody else. In terms of Lenny looking like Lenny, I knew I had to age in order to tell this love story. He had such a beautiful, iconic face. I thought, Well, working with a master makeup artist like Kazu Hiro, let’s create a hybrid where people can really enter into the illusion of Lenny, because I’m going to do the voice, too. And I have a big nose. Our foreheads, our noses, our eyes—it was all very workable, to create a sort of middle ground. In fact, I was always looking to do the least amount with prosthetics possible. The prosthetic for the nose was like a silk curtain; that’s about the difference between my nose and his nose.
Really?
And it’s wider. And he had a deviated septum. It’s all about balance. When we tried just the lips and the chin, without doing something with the nose, it just didn’t look human. Something was off. And then once we balanced it, in the middle, I believed that it was a human being. Kazu and I spent four years on this. I lived in his house over weekends. So, when that came out, I felt so secure that our endeavor, how we pursued it, was done with love. Now, that said, David, oddly enough, Alex Bernstein [Lenny’s son] sent me a letter saying, We want to write a letter responding to this.
Responding to the press criticism, of so-called “Jewface.”
Yeah. I don’t read anything, but I’d heard about it. I read the letter and then I called him. I’ll never forget it. He said, “Hey.” And I said, “Hey, it’s Bradley. I just want . . .” and I couldn’t talk. I started crying—weeping profusely, really weeping very hard, and he started crying. And then we just hung up.
You were moved out of gratitude toward him?
First of all, I think I maybe didn’t realize how much that hurt—that that’s all people were seeing about the movie. But also just that act of kindness from them, from the children.
Playing Bernstein, you don’t want to do a caricature, an impersonation, right? His voice was kind of liquid, low, aristocratic, and yet swingy. Tell me about that process of inhabiting another human being.
It starts with how I hear and see the movie. I always saw it as one musical element. And part of that music is the interplay between the characters and them speaking the music, the melody of their conversations, particularly between Felicia and Lenny. I had access to these wonderful audiotapes. That’s part of why I started to focus on making the movie about the two of them—the intoxicating melody of their conversations, and particularly him. He spoke melodically.
I knew early on that in order to tell this story about their relationship, it was going to have to take place over a period of time. Bernstein sounded different from years of smoking and getting older. His voice completely changed. I knew early on that I needed to start working on that immediately. Tim Monich [a dialect coach] and I started working on these three separate voices—when he’s in his twenties, when he’s in his fifties, and then when he’s in his late sixties.
So, when you are about to do a scene, do you have to put on the headphones and hear the voice, and get into it?
The only way that I know how to do this is to bank Lenny way before I start shooting. Otherwise, I’d be terrified, David. So, Leonard Bernstein, that character that you see in the film, was banked maybe six months before we started shooting. When I go through hair and makeup in the morning before crew call, Lenny is there. It’s me, but I’m speaking like him. Everything’s him. I direct the whole day as him. That’s the only way I know to be absolutely free. If I have to put headphones on, excuse my language, I’m absolutely fucked. All of my energy is put towards the filmmaking and to the other actors, so there’s never a moment on set when I’m thinking about what I sound like.
The heart of the movie is this relationship between Leonard Bernstein and his wife, Felicia. She goes into this marriage with her eyes open. She knows that he is gay, or bisexual, and she thinks she’s up for the task. There’s a lot of literature on Bernstein; how do you get to Felicia’s internal life?
What I got to know about Leonard Bernstein was that he was very consistent in the unorthodox way he lived his life. He does not change the entire film. Felicia does: Felicia has an awakening, an understanding of who she is and of what her plight is. But he states to us, the viewer, at the beginning of the film, and to her: I refuse to be one thing. The world wants us to be only one thing, and I find that deplorable.
What role did Felicia Montealegre play in Leonard Bernstein’s creative life? How are we meant to understand that in the film?
She tethers him. And, in tethering him, he can focus. He composed quite a bit of material in those years, those glory years.
It always struck me, even before your film, that Bernstein knew his place as a great conductor, as a Broadway composer, as a teacher. The one thing that seemed to gnaw at him was that he was not a classical composer on the same level as his heroes.
As Mahler. He was so excited about life, he was given so many gifts. And he just had all of these fires all burning at the same time. That takes a tremendous amount of energy. A family; extramarital intimate relationships; conducting; composing; teaching; all of these things. We didn’t even really go to his social activism in the movie. I think that had a tremendous amount of impact on him throughout his life. I don’t think it was just composing. I think if you asked him, he would’ve said, I wish I was a better father. I wish I was a better husband, I wish I was a better boyfriend. I think all of those things suffered because he was given so many talents, and he didn’t have the grounded quality, the self, the concretized way of living, such that he was able to do all of those things the way he wanted them.
Not to be cheap or reductive about this, but do you relate to any of that?
Absolutely.
Tell me about that.
I have a lot of passions. I love doing so many different types of things. When I made “A Star is Born,” I was only really able to make that movie with absolute freedom because I had been sober for so many years.
For about twenty years, right?
It’ll be twenty years in August. I made “Maestro” absolutely fearlessly, and I knew I had to because that’s a huge element in Bernstein’s music. It is fearless. In the last three to four years, I’ve arrived—by the grace of God—at a place of actually having self-esteem. I feel very comfortable in my skin. There’s no way I would’ve been able to tell this story if I was buckshot energy-wise—all over the place, in so many different directions. It just wouldn’t have been possible. So I do feel—as arrogant as this may sound—that because I have had the benefit of living in the time period that we are living in now, when there’s such an awareness of mental health and taking care of yourself—I feel like I’m in a place of contentment, soulfully, that maybe he [Bernstein] never arrived at.
Before we talk about a series of scenes in the film, I want to talk about a scene that’s not in the film. Writing is often a process of leaving things out—
I’m so glad you’re bringing this up. It’s so true.
One of the most famous incidents in the Bernsteins’ public lives came in 1970, when they hosted a benefit party for the Black Panthers at their apartment. They host it, and all the swell people of New York were there. And it was immortalized, first in the New York Times, in a report by Charlotte Curtis, and then, more famously, Tom Wolfe writes a piece called “Radical Chic.” And the Bernsteins look—just to put a quick tag on it—ridiculous. They seem like silly people in a way that’s now familiar. Trying to be “down” and trying to be “hip,” and they come off as absurd. My understanding is that Felicia, in particular, never quite recovered from Tom Wolfe’s piece. It’s not in the film. Tell me about that. It’s something you must have thought about.
Yeah, of course. That party was in there for a long time. The movie tells you what it wants. The spine of the film was always going to be their relationship. And the thing that was so clear was that there could be only one villain. I didn’t want to have another outside incident that brings them together. The villain is part of Lenny. He’s the villain. He’s the thing that I wanted to focus on breaking up their marriage, or the caustic element of this dynamic. It really diluted his accountability for her state to introduce that [the Black Panther benefit] into this narrative. And that’s why I ultimately took it out. If you add in another villain, Tom Wolfe sitting there, it’s not as strong.
For those who haven’t yet seen the film or read the biographies, what was their marital agreement?
They were two people who were absolutely enthralled with each other on so many levels: culturally, artistically, cerebrally, soulfully. And they were open about expressing who they were. Part of that was Felicia knowing all of Lenny, this dragon, who also found men, as well as women, sexually attractive, and would pursue that. She went into this marriage knowing all those things. For many people it wouldn’t make any sense. But to her, and to him, this was just part of what it is to fully accept another person.
One of the most moving scenes is their denial of this contract to their own children. There comes a point when one of the daughters, Jamie, hears rumors that Bernstein has had various relationships with men, and she goes to him and asks them about these rumors. On the advice of Felicia—in fact, maybe the insistence—he lies. He tells Jamie it’s not true.
It’s a pivotal scene for both characters—both Felicia and Lenny. He doesn’t understand the need. He’s not a deceitful husband. And the only time that he lies is at the urging of his wife. It kills him to do it. He talks about jealousy and tells this tale that’s kind of hilarious. And then she just asks her father point-blank, “Are the rumors true?” And he says, “No, darling.” Then she says, “I’m so relieved.” And when she says, “I’m so relieved,” you see disappointment on his face: Why are we teaching our daughter something that we ourselves don’t believe in?
Me, Bradley, in that moment, it was as if Lenny was screaming inside of me saying, “Fucking tell her the truth!” I started to think—honestly, David, I was, like, I’m going to tell her. I started to think, Well, if I tell her, I’m going to have to rewrite and reshoot—
The entire movie—
So much of the movie. I started going through in real time, that’s on film, going through what I’ll have to do. And, in the end, I thought, It’s impossible. You see his head shake for a second. That’s me going through it. Then he goes, “O.K., let’s just go.”
There’s another moment where they have an argument on Thanksgiving at the Dakota, as balloons are floating by the window.
Snoopy.
And then the dialogue settles down, and they say, as couples can, the most hurtful things imaginable to each other. And you think, That’s it, no marriage can survive that exchange. And then, not long after, we have Bernstein conducting the climactic passages of Mahler’s Second Symphony at the Ely Cathedral, in England.
The Resurrection.
It’s the most over-the-top conducting, physicality to the point of self-parody, which you get absolutely right. His first instinct after hearing the booming applause is to rush off the stage and into Felicia’s embrace—which she gives back totally.
That is the spine of the whole film. That’s exactly it. We’ve just watched him have an extramarital affair that he has brought into their home and into his artistry, which is a huge betrayal for her. That argument is about her saying to him, You’re not fulfilling your gifts that you’ve been given, and she says, “You’re going to end up a lonely old queen.” But she doesn’t say, “You’ve crushed me! How dare you!”
And then we have the scene where he’s conducting—which is really live. That’s me conducting the London Symphony Orchestra, because it was the only way to achieve the magic that he was able to achieve. There’s no hate in his heart. She says, You’re up there showing people that they’ll never hold a candle to you, that you are so much better than them. And then, when we’re watching him conduct, it’s the exact opposite. It’s exaltation. He’s the angel that God asked to come down in the beginning of the movie, because he can be a crystal; he can ingest all of that light, all of that power of the music, and then beam it out to all of us in the audience. So that’s why, when he rushes off, and she says to him, “There’s no hate in your heart”—that’s the pure love they had for each other.
I’ve got to ask you about conducting in the Ely Cathedral, in England, with the London Symphony Orchestra and a full chorus. You’re conducting Mahler. That’s got to be a childhood fantasy come true. What was the experience like? How does the filming work?
Well, I knew I was going to do that piece of music six years ago, so I started working on it then. There’s a wonderful recording of Bernstein’s performance in the Ely Cathedral, and I was able to get the raw footage.
I spent all the time I could going to the New York Philharmonic three or four times a week, just watching conductors. The L.A. Phil, the Philadelphia Orchestra, too. I became very close with Gustavo Dudamel and Yannick Nézet-Séguin. And then, conducting the orchestra, I had an earpiece, and Yannick counted the tempo for me. The problem was, I couldn’t really hear him, because the orchestra was so loud. We were only going to shoot that one day, and I messed it up the entire day. I kept getting behind the tempo, and the minute you lose tempo, it’s over.
What happens if the music stops?
They keep playing, because they’re the best orchestra in the world. But it’s not the same. And I know it, and the camera knows it, and the audience knows it. The next morning after filming with the orchestra, I texted the sound mixer, Steve Morrow, and asked him if we had it. If you’re getting a call from your filmmaker asking, “Do you have it?,” and you’re the sound mixer—that’s not a very good sign. And he said, I think we do. But because I would always show up before crew call—at least twenty minutes—because I’d been in the makeup chair, I walked into the empty Ely Cathedral, and I heard Lenny sort of saying to me, Do it one more time. Do not give up.
And so the seventy-five orchestra members of the London Symphony Orchestra, and all of the chorus—we brought everybody back, and I designed the shot that you see. I gave myself one more chance. And, for whatever reason, that six years of prep came to me effortlessly. I was able to let go and conduct the orchestra. So much so that the timpanist came running up to me afterwards, and said: “You know, yesterday, everything you did was absolute shit. This is the one you have to use.” And I was, like, I know.
Really?
Yeah. He said, “You actually conducted us there, Lenny.” You’d have to ask Lenny, but I think he’d be very happy. I hope he would. I’ll never forget it. Scariest thing I’ve ever done by far. I mean, not even close. Singing at the Oscars live, performing at Glastonbury—nothing even comes close.
When you’re hired to do a film, whether it’s a comic film or a dramatic film, and you’re acting, what’s the physical-depletion difference between doing that and something like “A Star Is Born,” or maybe even more so “Maestro,” where it’s all-consuming? You’re acting, you’re directing, you’re writing, you’re promoting. You’re it.
I didn’t allow myself to dream as big as I really wanted to dream when I was a kid. Acting is what I thought I wanted. But the truth is, it wasn’t just what Anthony Hopkins and John Hurt did in “The Elephant Man”; it was what David Lynch was doing in “The Elephant Man.” That’s what really got me excited. It wasn’t until I spent years in this business, and as I was on these sets acknowledging that all I really think about is how they’re making this movie. That’s all I really care about. I was lucky enough to work with filmmakers who saw that in me and invited me very much into their process. I mean, there’s so many times I’d be with an actor and they said, Wait a second, how were you ever let into the editing room? I think the reason was because these filmmakers realized that, Oh, this is a like-minded person who’s not just thinking about their performance. So it became sort of an organic evolution that then led me to direct. And also, quite honestly, it was frustration that these directors who I really love just don’t want to work with me—
What directors don’t want to work with you and why?
Well, you’d have to ask them why. But, I mean, any actor will have a list of directors that just don’t—at that time, I had written David Fincher an e-mail years previously. Never got a response. Martin Scorsese at that time, Paul Thomas Anderson, Quentin Tarantino. I mean, I could go on and on.
Are you done with fun? In other words, if a kind of fun comic role came along, if it was three months of your time, maybe not “Hangover” five, but something of a similar spirit.
Well, I would do “Hangover” five. It would be four first, but, yeah.
You would do that in a flash? And not just to pay the bills?
I would probably do “Hangover” four in an instant, just because I love Todd [Phillips]. I love Zach [Galifianakis]. I love Ed [Helms] so much. I probably would, yeah.
I think we just made news. “Hangover” four is coming around the corner?
I don’t think Todd’s ever going to do that. But you said the word “fun.” There’s nothing more fun that I’ve ever experienced than “Maestro” and “A Star is Born.” This is me having fun. I wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t fun.
I find it hard to believe that you can inhabit the personality, the intelligence of Leonard Bernstein, and think about him and walk around in his shoes for five, six years, with such passion and focus, and then walk out. How do you move on from an experience like that? How do you take the mask off and move on?
You don’t move on. That’s the beauty of what I get to do. My characters live inside me. I don’t think they ever go away. It’s sort of the beauty of it.
How did it shape the way you think about what’s next? Do you become pickier and more selective?
I don’t know. I just know that I feel like my tools are sharper. I may have a few more tools as I go into the next adventure. Which is exciting.
Do you know what that next adventure is?
I might.
I thought you might. And it’s not a Metallica bio-pic. I know you have a special affection for Metallica—
I need to keep my hearing, David. I’m holding on by a thread.
And you’ve had hearing issues in the past. I don’t think Metallica would be good for you.
No. As much as I do love them.
Finally, and this is the most important question I can ask, and it’s a musical one: We’re going to play a Metallica song on the way out.
Lovely.
What should we play, Bradley Cooper?
I think we have to play “Fade to Black,” don’t we? ♦
