Bradley Cooper stated remodeling into the legendary composer Leonard Bernstein for his new movie “Maestro”, launched on Netflix on December 20, pressured him to develop up.
The 48-year-old actor spent years researching, writing, directing and starring within the movie about essentially the most well-known American conductor and composer of the twentieth century.
The movie focuses on the deep and sophisticated relationship between Bernstein and his spouse Felicia, performed by Carey Mulligan — considered one of actual love burdened by his many dalliances with younger males.
AFP sat down with the 2 stars backstage on the Theatre de Chatelet in Paris, the place they’d stopped by to satisfy the solid of “West Side Story”, Bernstein’s most well-known composition.
Q: Bradley, you spent months studying to conduct for the function. Could you leap in and lead the orchestra right here?
Cooper: Absolutely not! It could be a calamity. I discovered to conduct six minutes of Mahler. If we did that, I may get away with it — perhaps.
Q: What did you find out about conducting?
Cooper: It’s like driving a stallion. You’re main the orchestra however you are additionally recognizing that they are a respiratory organism that is very highly effective and has its personal thoughts. Lenny’s genius was that he may very well be exhausting however he all the time did it with love. And he knew what he was doing. He married romanticism and fervour with actual musical acumen.
Q: Carey, was Felicia a sufferer on this marriage?
Mulligan: She was decided in her personal thoughts to not be. Of course she sacrificed lots, however she did it wholeheartedly, with out query, and it was solely later in her life that it caught up along with her.
Q: How would she really feel about being portrayed on display screen?
Cooper: The kids stated Felicia could be horrified as a result of she was such a personal individual, however secretly joyous that Carey Mulligan was taking part in her.
Mulligan: I wrote her a letter once we had been about to start out filming. Obviously I did not ship it wherever. But I wrote ‘I hope that is alright, do not be cross with me.’
I performed Nina in “The Seagull” (Chekhov’s play) after I was 21 and it modified my life. I spent the following 15 years looking for one thing that felt like that, and I discovered it in Felicia.
Q: How has the expertise of changing into Bernstein modified you?
Cooper: I turned an grownup via this movie, by incorporating the traits Lenny lived his life by, which is an unrelenting pursuit of what one desires to do. I’ve all the time been apologetic about it earlier than, at the very least to myself, and I wasn’t on this film, partly as a result of I had an unimaginable associate in Carey, who allowed me to be daring.
Q: What drew you to the story — the music or the connection?
Cooper: The very first thing was being obsessive about conducting. I believed I may pull off taking part in a conductor as a result of I used to be so in tune with it since I used to be a child.
But in researching and writing, the intriguing factor was this relationship between Lenny and Felicia, and that turned the north star. The conducting turned only a story level.
Q: What would you wish to ask Lenny?
Cooper: I’d ask him if he feels misplaced. In these final years after she died — did he be happy to reside his greatest life? Does he want he may have spoken to someone to discover a sense of peace?
Q: You’ve made a movie about rock music (“A Star is Born”) and now classical. What’s subsequent?
Mulligan: Techno!
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