“Maestro” is the “Scariest Thing I’ve Ever Done”
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Listener supported. WNYC Studios. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Like nearly everyone my age, I grew up on rock and roll. Little Richard, The Beatles, The Stones, Aretha. But in that heroic pantheon of mine, one figure stood out. The classical conductor, composer, and teacher, Leonard Bernstein.

Bernstein was a personality as kaleidoscopic as any rock star. On podiums from New York to Berlin, conducting Beethoven or Mahler, he was as physical in his way as James Brown or Tina Turner. Bernstein wrote the music to West Side Story and other Broadway hits.

And he was a vivid and accessible presence on television, leading the famous Young People's Concerts. It's a funny thing about this meaning business, in music anyway. When you say, what does it mean? What you're really saying is, what is it trying to tell me? What ideas does it make me have? Bernstein drew you into a long tradition of music that might otherwise have escaped your ears. And what a loss that would have been.

Bernstein also had a personal life that was chaotic and for its time revolutionary. His marriage to a brilliant actress, Felicia Montalegre, is the subject of Bradley Cooper's thrilling new film, Maestro. Cary Mulligan plays Felicia and Cooper plays Leonard Bernstein. He also co-wrote the screenplay and directed the film. I had the chance to watch Maestro with Bradley Cooper and then we sat down to talk about it at length.

So let's get to it. 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 is the origin story of Maestro? I would have to date it back to being a child and growing

with cartoons as a kid in front of the television and Tom and Jerry and Bugs Bunny conducting. And we also simultaneously had a record player in the living room that would always have classical music. And that was the first time I realized that you could

move your hand up and down and sound comes out. And I just became absolutely obsessed with that idea of power, quite honestly, and magical power. It must be narcotic. It really felt that way as a kid because I asked Santa Claus that coming Christmas for a baton. How old were you? I must have been...

In between six to eight, I don't know exactly when, but right around then. And I still remember when it showed up. And I kept it. I just lost it last year, but I had it all the way through college. I kept it in my college dorm in grad school. It was sort of like a totem for me. And even in grad school, Ellen Burstyn came and did a workshop for four weeks. And the assignment was create a character. And I wrote a monologue for a conductor.

And so it was always something that was inside of me since I was a kid, and I spent hundreds of hours, David, conducting to music that I loved as a child. I mean, I'm not exaggerating that number. So that when it rolled around seven years, six and a half years ago, that Steven Spielberg was going to perhaps do a biopic about Leonard Bernstein,

He happened to know that little fact about my obsession with conducting and said, "Would you read this script and would you ever consider playing Bernstein?" And he wasn't going to direct it. I said, "Listen."

Would you let me sort of investigate and see if there's a movie that I, 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? So there was an existing script at that point? There was an existing. By whom? By Josh Singer, who came on board. I see. And we wrote it together, the new script. But just to be clear, Leonard Bernstein, I'm older than you are.

He was a part of childhood for me. Right. And he was magnetic like nothing else in the classical music realm. He was a rock star. Yeah, no question. And he acknowledged rock and roll and even brought in rock bands. He sure did. Yeah. Yeah. So you're younger. You're watching it through, absorbing it through purely from records? Yeah.

You're talking about once I started doing research? But as you were a kid and getting interested in Leonard Bernstein. Oh, as a kid, just records. Ricardo Moody was the music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra back then. I was lucky enough that my parents took my sister and I a couple of times. We spent a vacation in Boca Raton, Florida, and Itzhak Perlman happened to be staying in the room next door, and I'll never forget it. And I just heard the violin play.

all throughout the night and day when we were there. And I was just obsessed with who, who, who's, what creature's making this in the other room. Incredible. Incredible. So years go by and suddenly Steven Spielberg has given you a blessing. That's right. In a sense.

And so what do you do next? And then the work began. I had to go and meet the three children, Nina, Alex, and Jamie, and try to convince them to trust me enough to give me the rights to the music for however long amount of years the contract would be.

And I had no, and David, I had no story. There was no script. I showed them the movie, Stars Born, and I told them what I just told you. And I said, it's a very big fire burning inside me for a conductor. And I won't ever make a movie I don't believe in. And they said yes. So at some point you have to find the story within the story, the narrative within the big sprawling biography. And clearly the center of the film is the relationship between

Between husband and wife, and it's a very complicated one. Why did you go for that as opposed to some other aspect of Bernstein's life? One thing I realized right off the bat is, first of all, I had no desire to make a biopic. You can make an incredible documentary, and some have been made already about this man, because of just the sheer amount of primary footage out there.

But I also wanted to do right by his impact. But because there's sound, picture, colors, production value, as well as story, all of these things that encompass a film, I thought that I could achieve...

conveying his achievements through other means than just story. For example, I thought, well, the whole movie can be set to his music. Right away, I thought, I feel like I can take care away of that tranche of his legacy by just having the whole movie be scored to his music.

He also had a relationship to God was a big part of his life. And that early on, I started to see the visual aspect of the film. That's what excites me about a filmmaker. That's where the 1-3-3 aspect ratio, which much of the film has, that's where that came from.

because I like the sort of vertical element to it. Explain what that aspect ratio is as opposed to other things we see. So that's more of a vertical. Either side of the frame, if you're watching it, is squeezed in and you have more top and bottom. So it's almost like a television. As opposed to scope, which is sort of the westerns and you have more room on the left and right.

And it's wonderful for a close-up as well, the 1-3-3. I'm just sort of explaining how things start to ruminate inside me. It's always visual. I thought, oh, this is going to be depth. This is foreground, background, low to high. That's how the movie's going to breathe. So I want to be able to have him reach his hand all the way as high as he can with that baton and not have it be out of frame, quite honestly. Otherwise, I'd have to squeeze the image down. These are things that you're thinking about and many, many other things.

And at the same time, we live in the real world. This is 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 $90 million, and I think we were shy of that in the end. Which is an enormous amount of money for a movie that's half black and white, shot on 35mm black and white film, which, David, means that there's no going back. Yeah.

And no matter how successful you've been, both as a comic actor, as a serious actor, and then with A Star is Born, it's still a film about a dead classical music conductor. And I've got to figure that you probably have the experience. That half is in black and white, which is a huge thing for the studios. How many no's did you get?

And just to be clear, it's $90 million. It's all that money. The budget was so high because we shot live music with live orchestras and because we went on locations. I didn't know how to make the movie in any other way. Everybody said no, the answer is. I think I went, you know, it started at Paramount. They said no. Warner Brothers said no. Apple said no. I don't think we ever made it to Sony. And Scott Stuber...

I sat down with him, he looked at me, he said, "This is absolutely nuts." But your enthusiasm is infectious and I trust filmmakers that I believe in. - You're not chopped liver, you're Bradley Cooper at this point and you're going into some of the biggest offices in LA and what is the language you get for no? What does it sound like? - Well, I think I have to set the stage for you about who I am first.

Just as an example, my mother and I just put ourselves on tape last weekend so that we can hopefully get another T-Mobile Super Bowl commercial. So I think maybe that...

I think maybe that'll shatter your idea. I'm literally not making that up. The America's largest 5G network. T-Mobile has price locks. Okay, whoa. Smile. You look like a clam. I think I know what I'm doing. So I have no problem asking and pitching something that I believe in. And no is something that you become so well acquainted with that...

Warner Brothers was a tough no. That was the one that hurt a little bit, just because I had made A Star Is Born there and American Sniper and Joker. And I just thought, oh, trust me, guys. And even if it doesn't work, I don't think it'll look bad on you because I have been so successful for you in the past on projects that were very also risky, a fourth remake of a movie. So what was their explanation for no? What's the rationale? I

I think it was nothing other than logical. You know? That we'll take a bath. It makes sense what they're saying. You know, it's a huge budget. It's a subject matter that no one will be interested in, and we just can't justify it. I'm talking today with Bradley Cooper about Maestro, this film about the conductor Leonard Bernstein. A few months ago, when stills from the film were first circulating...

The Internet, in its way, as usual, blew up with a controversy over the prosthetic that Cooper wears on his nose, the schnoz that he used to portray Bernstein. So the first thing that I heard about this film was this business of the makeup and Jew face and, oh my God, should a non-Jewish guy be playing a Jewish guy? And is the nose too big? And so on. I'll reserve judgment, but what...

Was it a serious conversation about prosthetics or it didn't seem all that striking to me? Well, what you're speaking of actually came out after we had made the movie. Right. So I had already gone through the entire process of the film. And in terms of the Lenny looking like Lenny, I knew that I had to age in order to tell this love story. And then he has such a beautiful, iconic face and

I thought, well, let's, when I work with a master artist like Kazu, let's create a hybrid where people can really enter into the illusion of Lenny, because I'm going to do the voice anyway. And I have a big nose. Not that that was ever something, but I was like, yeah, our face, our foreheads, our noses, our eyes, the way our eyes are, ears, it's all very workable to create a sort of middle ground.

And by the way, the prosthetic for the nose was like a silk curtain. That's about the difference between my nose and his nose. But we had to, and it's wider. And he had a deviated septum. Now that said, David, oddly enough to me, Alex Bernstein sent me a letter. This is his son, the middle child. Yeah. And he said, you know, we want to write a letter responding to this.

No one had ever really... Responding to the press criticism. Yeah, I don't read anything, but I had heard about it, yeah. But I read the letter, and then I called him. I'll never forget it. And he said, hey, and I said, hey, it's Bradley. I just want... And I couldn't talk. And I started weeping, like profusely, like really weeping very hard.

And he started crying. And then we just hung up. And I realized... You were moved out of gratitude toward him. I just never... First of all, I think I didn't realize how much maybe that hurt that that's all people were seeing about the movie. But also just that act of kindness from them, from the children. ♪

My conversation with Bradley Cooper about Maestro continues in a moment. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour.

I'm Maria Konnikova. And I'm Nate Silver. And our new podcast, Risky Business, is a show about making better decisions. We're both journalists whom we light as poker players, and that's the lens we're going to use to approach this entire show. We're going to be discussing everything from high-stakes poker to personal questions. Like whether I should call a plumber or fix my shower myself. And of course, we'll be talking about the election, too. Listen to Risky Business wherever you get your podcasts.

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick, and I'm speaking today with Bradley Cooper. Cooper was on the Hollywood A-list of stars as a comic and serious actor when he made his debut as a director with A Star is Born, the 2018 version in which he co-starred with Lady Gaga. And since that film, he's been working single-mindedly, obsessively on Maestro, a film about Leonard Bernstein and his marriage to the actress Felicia Montalegro. Hello. Hello.

I'm Lenny. Hello, Felicia. Bernstein, like that one. Montalegre. Montalegre? Montalegre Cone. Cone? Montalegre Cone? Well, that's an interesting marriage of words. Felicia is played by Carrie Mulligan, and Mulligan gets top billing in the credits. Now, it's not a conventional biopic of Bernstein. The film centers on the marriage, and it explores his creative, voracious, consuming, and selfish nature.

as someone who was capable of astonishing work and also a certain self-destructiveness. You probably won't remember the first time we met, and we've only met a couple of times, but the first time we met, you had on your iPhone the voice that you wanted to use, speaking voice, for A Star is Born. For Jackson Maine. Yeah, I had Sam Elliott's voice. Right. I started putting it down on paper when we were at home. I don't know, it just sort of fell out of me, I guess.

And you were playing this for me, and then how you would do it. It was totally fascinating to me.

Now, here, you don't want to do a caricature, and you don't want to do an impersonation, right? But you, I'm telling you, it's the most uncanny thing. But the voice, the kind of liquid, low, aristocratic, and yet swingy Leonard Bernstein voice. And I remember particularly when we got to the scherzo, which was in seven for a time, and it's a little tricky, it's not really, I mean, but.

but then it seemed tricky in those days. And it changes during the course of the film, just as he does physically. It initially 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 of their, the melody of their conversations, particularly between Felicia and Lenny, because I had access to these wonderful audio tapes

And that's part of why I started to focus on wanting to make a movie about the two of them, was just the melody, the intoxicated melody of their conversations, and particularly him. He spoke melodically. I also 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. So if you're going to do that, he sounded different from years of smoking, getting older. His voice completely changed. So...

I knew early on, like back in 2017, right away when I even began to think about this, that I needed to start working immediately. So Tim Monick, that is the guy.

who I work with all the time, and we started working on these three separate voices when he's in his 20s, when he's in his 50s, and then when he's in his late 60s. He's a dialogue coach. He's a dialogue coach, yeah. So when you are about to do a scene, do you have to then put on the headphones, hear the voice, and then get into it? Or can you put it on as a party trick? Here's what's great about having prep.

The only way that I know how to do this is I have 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. So when I go through hair and makeup in the morning before crew call, Lenny's there. It's me, but I'm speaking like him. Everything's him. So I direct the whole day as him. And I do that just because that's the only way I know to be absolutely free. And I'm not even thinking about anything. If I had to go and put headphones and listen...

I'm, excuse my language, absolutely fucked. Yeah. Because all of my energy, David, also is to the filmmaking and to the other actors. So there's never a moment ever where I'm even thinking about what I sound like. And what's fun about that, because as you mentioned, there's all these different voices.

And the crew is like, you know, and the way we would shoot a day would depend on the energy of the Lenny. So like young Lenny, we have a lot of energy. We sort of race through the day. Old Lenny, you know, there was this, you're sort of in third gear as we're making the movie. So it was like, oh, who's, and then the crew, we were like, oh, we got young Lenny today. Oh, that's great. So obviously the heart of the movie is,

is this relationship between Leonard Bernstein and his wife, Felicia. She goes into the marriage with her eyes wide open. She knows that her husband-to-be is gay or bisexual. He's been described in different ways. He's definitely not monogamous. And she thinks she's up for the task somehow. So how do you get to Felicia's internal life?

Again, it starts off with the macro of the story and the idea of what I got to know about Leonard Bernstein was that he was sort of a very consistent person, very consistent in his unorthodox way he lived his life.

That's why in the beginning of the film, when I sort of placed him, he's up in the clouds, like an angel, and then God's calling him to go down to the people to give his gift. That's what that first scene's about. And in that, he's playing the bongos on David Oppenheim's butt. That is the same guy who then is dancing with William to shout at the end of the movie, William the Young Conductor. He does not change the entire film.

Felicia does. Felicia has an awakening, an understanding of who she is and what her plight is when she... Let's slow both of these things down because we've seen it, but you're saying Bernstein is the same throughout his life. It's almost like he's the antagonist, she's the protagonist in some ways. And what is the it there? In other words, he's this just absolutely consumed and consuming personality that...

And his ambitions are limitless. He wants to be one. Well, he states it. I mean, he states it to us, the viewer, at the beginning of the film and her, I refuse to be one thing. The world wants us to be only one thing. And I find that deplorable. And I find you very attractive, Felicia, right after we had just seen him banging the drums of a guy's butt. Right. You're like, oh, okay. So.

So in other words, he could be musically voracious, sexually voracious, and voracious in all ways. That's right. Jerry Robbins just said five minutes ago, your show pony here is a composer, not a conductor. And we just saw him composing Manfred, and now he's playing the piano with Aaron Copland. So the hope is in the very beginning of the movie, you are bombarded by who this man is. Yeah. And then she comes onto the stage, comes off the bus, huge close-up, and she grounds him. The movie slows down. It gets tethered by her. Yeah.

And then she says to him, you are a dragon. And then kisses him. And he takes that as, you see me and you still want me. What did Felicia do for Leonard Bernstein's creative life? How are we meant to understand that in the film? Well, number one, what I just sort of articulated about the hope of what the audience feels from that first 10 minutes of the film is that she tethers him. And in tethering him, he can focus.

He composed quite a bit of material in those years, those sort of glory years.

And he had a tremendous amount of frustration and lament that he hadn't composed more as he got later in life. Halfway through the movie, he says, you know, when you add it up, it's not that much. And you see that he's a bit downtrodden even then. Because he's disappointed that he was not the composer of classical music that would have put him on the same level as his heroes. As Mahler. As Mahler.

Where I landed and what I used was, he was so excited about life, he was given so many gifts, and let's just say those are little fires he gets to start, 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. And we didn't even really go to the social activism that he did in the movie. And I think that has 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 have definitely said, "I wish I was a better father." I think there are many... I think he would have said, "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. Not to be cheap or reductive about this, but do you relate to any of that? Absolutely. Tell me about that. I think that, you know, I have a lot of passions. I love doing so many different types of things and...

As I've gotten older, I mean, the thing that really struck me, like 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 that I could go into this mindset, this soul place. For about 20 years, right? Yeah, fearlessly. It'll be 20 years in August. So it was what, like 17, 16 years at the time, but a long time.

This movie that you were speaking of, I made absolutely fearlessly. And I knew I had to because that's a huge element in Bernstein's music. It is fearless. I think that in the last three to four years, I've arrived, by the grace of God, to a place of actually having self-esteem and feel very comfortable in my skin.

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, and there's such an awareness to mental health and taking care of yourself, that I feel like I'm in a place of contentment, soulfully, that maybe he never arrived at because of many factors. What brought you to that place? Just tremendous work. You know, just relentless work.

You're listening to the New Yorker Radio Hour, and I'm speaking with Bradley Cooper about his film Maestro. It opened in theaters this week. So I wanted to, before we talk about a series of scenes in the film, I want to talk about a scene that's not in the film, because writing is often a process of leaving things out as well as- I'm so glad you're bringing that up. You're making decisions. It's so true. So one of the most famous incidents in Bernstein's public life and Felicia's public life is a moment at the height

this I forget what the year is the Black Panthers are in town and they're gonna have a benefit and the benefit is at the Bernstein's they host it and all the swell people of New York are there and it becomes immortalized first in the New York Times and then much more famously Tom Wolfe writes a piece called radical chic and the Bernstein's look Just to put a quick tag on it ridiculous. They they seem like silly people

Um, in a way that's now familiar, you know, trying to be down and trying to be hip and, and, and coming off absurdly. And I don't think my understanding is from reading about Bernstein is that Felicia in particular ever quite recovered from Tom Wolfe's piece. It was really tough on her in particular. Um, it's not in the film.

Tell me about that. It's obviously something you must have thought about. Oh, and wrote. So you wrote the scene about that party? Yeah, that party was that party for a long time. And again, the movie tells you what it wants. The spine of the film is their relationship. And the thing that was so clear to us was there can be only one villain in

I don'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. And it really diluted his accountability for her state by introducing that into this narrative what this movie was about. And that's why I ultimately took it out.

And also because I wanted, you know, in terms of people have asked about, you know, your jumping, you know, timeline, that switch from black and white to color, which is would have been when that scene would have occurred, was all about their lifestyles having been...

stressed by this agreement that they made. If you add in another villain of a Tom Wolfe sitting there, it becomes, it's not as strong. It just wasn't as strong. And I'm off the spine. Tell us what the marital agreement was for those who haven't seen the film or read lots of biographies.

Two people who were absolutely enthralled with each other on so many levels, culturally, artistically, cerebrally, soulfully, and were open about expressing who they were. Part of that was Felicia knowing all of Lenny, this dragon, who also found men sexually attractive as well as women and would pursue that. And she...

went into this marriage knowing all of those things. So at the time, that was a very unorthodox thing. And for many people, it wouldn't make it even any sense. But to her and to him, this was just part of what it is to accept another person. One of the most moving scenes is there comes a point when one of the daughters finds out or hears rumors, and she goes to Bernstein and asks him about these rumors.

And on the advice of Felicia, in fact, maybe the insistence, he lies. He tells her it's not true. Yeah, pivotal scene for both characters, both Felicia and Lenny. And in fact, in terms of what occurs, you know, sometimes when you're acting, that scene, if you recall that scene, his daughter has spent the summer at Tanglewood. And there are these rumors that he has been having extramarital affairs with

with men and she's upset by it she shared that with her mother and her mother told him go outside and tell Jamie that that's not true so he goes out there to try to justify and he talks about jealousy and tells this tale that's kind of hilarious enlightened or shed some sort of understanding on what could have happened but I can only imagine that it was burned on by jealousy darling jealousy of whatever it is that I do

And it's plagued me all my life, and I apologize for it plaguing you now.

And then she just asks point blank to her father, are the rumors true? And he says, no, darling. I'm relieved. And then she says, I'm so relieved. And when she says, I'm so relieved, you see on his face this disappointment. Oh, why are we teaching our daughter something that we ourselves don't believe in? Absolutely. And he is so strong, Leonard Bernstein, and was so strong in the making of this movie, that what actually is occurring and why I stay on that shot for so long is because...

Me, Bradley, as Leonard Bernstein, in that moment, it was as if Lenny was screaming inside me saying, fucking tell her the truth. And I started to think, honestly, David, I was like, I'm going to tell her. I'm going to tell her.

And then I started to think, well, if I tell her, I'm going to have to rewrite and reshoot so much of the movie. And 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. And then he goes, and you could see his head shake for a second. Like, that's me going through it. And then he goes, okay, let's just go. Yeah.

Amazing. One of the incredible things to me, there's another moment where they have an argument on Thanksgiving. This is an incredible scene. At Thanksgiving Day at the Dakota, as balloons are floating by the window, Snoopy or I forget what it was. Snoopy, yeah. And the argument begins with this tremendous cross talk. You're actually kind of not following what one is saying to the other except in emotion. And then the dialogue settles down.

And they say, as couples can, the most hurtful things imaginable to each other. You're letting your sadness get the better of you. Oh, stop it. This has nothing to do with me. Let me finish what I'm going to say. I think you're letting your sadness get the better of you. This has nothing to do with me. It's about you, so you should love it.

You want to be sleepless and depressed and sick. You want to be all of those things so you can avoid fulfilling your obligations. What obligations? To what you've been given, to the gift you've been given. Oh, please. Please. My God. The gift comes with burdens, if you had any idea. Oh, the burden of failing honesty and love. I'm sorry to just admit it, but that's the truth. But above all, you love people. I do love people. And from that wellspring of love, the complications arise in your life. That's exactly right. Wake up. Wake up. Take off your glasses. And you think, if you didn't know the story, that's it.

No marriage can survive that exchange, despite Snoopy coming by the window, which is a great touch. Not long after, we have Leonard Bernstein conducting the climactic passages of Mahler's Second Symphony at a cathedral in England. And his first instinct after the booming applause is to rush off the stage and into her embrace, which she gives back totally. That to me is the...

The spine. That is the spine of the whole film. And again, she's, I mean, I hope you heard some of it because it's really, she was really laying into him at the beginning, but it's all about...

And that is her laying into him, not about, we've just watched him have an extramarital affair that he has brought into their home and into his artistry, which is the huge betrayal for her, at least in her mind. I think she's been heartfully betrayed for years, but she still cannot articulate it.

That argument is about her saying to him, you're not fulfilling your gifts that you've been given. And it's just the... And you're going to end up... And you're going to end up a lonely old queen. But she doesn't say, you've crushed me. How dare you? You've betrayed... She doesn't say anything to that. And it's not until you get to the part when she has her realization...

And she says, I used to envy my children who would wait once so longingly for his attention. And she would always say to herself, I don't need, I don't need, but I do. I'm the one who's been a fool. And then we have the scene where he's conducting, which is really live. That's me conducting the London Symphony Orchestra because that was the only way to achieve that magic that he was able to achieve. And the hope is, as an audience member,

There's no hate in his heart, because clearly I didn't see any hate in his heart, and there's no way she would have loved him, because that's what she attacks him for at the Thanksgiving Day parade party, fight. She says it's hate. 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 to in the beginning of the movie because he can be a crystal and 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, and then me then making a movie. He was able to stand in the center of the sun and not only not burn, but reflect it back to us in a way that we could achieve...

appreciate it and not burn ourselves. So that's why when he rushes off, and he's crying in her dress, I love when he leaves and you just see the sweat stains on her blue dress. And then she says to him, there's no hate in your heart. And 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 a full orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, and a full chorus. You're conducting Mahler. I mean, that's got to be a childhood fantasy come true. It sure is. You know, some kids dream of hitting the ball out of Yankee Stadium. That's it. You got to do that. I know. So 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. And there's a wonderful recording of that performance. And I was able to get the raw footage where it's just seeing his conducting. And then I just spent, you know, all of the time I could, number one, going to the New York Phil three or four times a week, just watching conductors, the LA Phil, the Philadelphia Orchestra became very close with Gustavo Dudamel and Yannick Sagan. And

Those are two of the very top conductors working today. And then Yannick, who's been just a whole part of Lenny in this film. I had an earpiece and he was counting tempo for me when I was doing it because I was conducting them. That is live.

But the problem was, I couldn't really hear it because the music's so loud. I couldn't really hear it. And we shot that over one day. 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. So what happens? The music stops? You have to do it again? No, they keep playing because they're the best orchestra in the world, but it's not the same. It's not the same.

And I know it. And so the camera knows and the audience knows it. I went to bed that night. The next morning, I...

I texted the sound mixer, Steve Morrow, and asked him if we had it, which I think if you're getting a call from your filmmaker, do you have it? And you're the sound mixer, that's not a very optimistic sign. And he said, I think we do. And because I always would show up before crew call, really, a couple minutes, at least 20, because I'd been in the makeup chair, I walked into the empty Ely booth.

And it was at Lenny's sort of saying to me, just do it one more time, do not give up. And so the 75 orchestra members of the London Symphony Orchestra brought everybody back one shot. And for whatever reason, David, all of that prep for six years came to me effortlessly and I was able to let go and conduct the orchestra.

So much so the timpanist came running afterwards. You know, yesterday, everything you did was absolute shit. This is the one you have to use. And I was like, no, no, I know. Yeah. And I said, no, he said, no, you actually conducted us there, Lenny. And I said, I know. Yeah, that's what's going to be in. And that was it. And you'd have to ask Lenny, but I think he'd be very happy. I hope he wouldn't.

Wow, that's incredible. It was really incredible. 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. Bradley Cooper. He conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in a recreation of a famous concert by Leonard Bernstein for his new film, Maestro. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. We'll continue in a moment.

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This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. The film Maestro has been getting some love from the critics, and it's going to be a heavy contender, I think, for the awards season. Bradley Cooper stars in the film as Leonard Bernstein. He directed the film, and he co-wrote it with Josh Singer. Cooper's path to being a filmmaker of note was hardly a straight line. He became known first as a beloved actor in some decidedly bro-y comedies, playing a jerk in Wedding Crashers,

and more of a straight man in the Hangover films. Dr. Price, Stu, you're a dentist. Hey, don't try and get fancy. It's not fancy if it's true. He's a dentist. Don't get too excited. And if someone has a heart attack, you should still call 911. Cooper went on to some really serious roles in films with directors, including David O. Russell, and he might not like me mentioning it, but at the same time, he shows up quite often on lists of sexiest men alive.

Still, all along, Cooper told me he wanted to get behind the camera. He fulfilled the cliche of, I always wanted to direct. And he did so with a bang. He debuted as a director on A Star is Born. I mean, I...

I didn't allow myself to dream as big as I really wanted to dream when I was a kid, so acting is what I thought I wanted. But the truth is, it wasn't just what Hopkins and Hurt did in The Elephant Man, it was what David Lynch was doing in The Elephant Man, it was the sound design. That's what really got me excited, and 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. That's what it gets me excited. And 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, you're in the editing room? How did you ever get let in the editing room? Yeah.

And I think the reason was because these filmmakers realized that, oh, this is a like-minded person. They're not just thinking about their performance. So it became sort of an organic evolution

That that then that then led me to and also, quite honestly, frustration that these directors who I really love just don't want to work with me. And I'm 40 years old. I think I can't just sit around and wait and do movies that I that I actually think that aren't what I want to be doing. So what directors don't want to work with you and why?

Well, I don't, you'd have to ask them why. But, you know, I mean, any actor will have a list of directors that just don't, you know, at that time, you know, like I had written David Fincher an email years ago, never heard a response. Martin Scorsese at that time, Paul Thomas Anderson, Quentin Tarantino, I mean, I could go on and on.

You worked with one of the most difficult people. You did three films with David O. Russell, who couldn't be more difficult. Well, it's not about being difficult. Famously. Yeah, well, I love David, and we had an incredible time together. Hopefully, I'm not coming across anyway being, you know, not acknowledging how lucky I've been with the people I have gotten to work with. I'm just speaking to the fact that they were other people. And I just got to a point where I just thought, let me try to do it myself. It's always what I wanted to do anyway.

Are you done with fun? In other words, if a kind of fun comic role came along, it was three months of your time. It's it's not Hangover 5, but something of a similar spirit. Well, I would do Hangover 5. It would be four first. But yeah, well, I want to get ahead of ourselves. You would do that in a flash.

And not just to pay the bills. I would probably do Hangover 4 in an instant. Yeah, just because I love Todd. I love Zach. I love Ed so much. I probably would, yeah. Okay, I think we just made dude. Hangover 4 is coming around the corner. I don't think Todd's ever going to do that. But real quick, just to end. You said the word fun. If there was just something fun. There's nothing more fun that I've ever experienced than Maestro and A Star is Born. This is me having fun. It is. Yeah.

- Oh, I wouldn't do it if it wasn't. - But the higher fun. - I don't know what you mean. Comedy? - I mean one is just less consuming and exhausting. - Yeah, I just didn't see it as exhausting. - You don't have too many maestros in you. There's only one life to live. - That's correct. And I also realized that, and I'd rather make, if I'm lucky enough to have another idea come in that I'm willing to exert this much energy, if I could do it two more, three more times in my life, I'd be very lucky.

I find it hard to believe that you can inhabit the personality, the voice, the intelligence of a Leonard Bernstein. Think about him, walk around in his shoes and even his nose for five or six years. Do that all with total consumption and passion and focus and then walk away from it. How do you move on from an experience like that? How do you take the mask off and then just move on?

You don't move on. That's the beauty about what I get to do. Chris Kyle lives inside me. I mean, Joseph Merrick's right here in my wall. There's Lenny. I don't think they ever go away. There were many months where I sort of was talking with a bit of a thing when I would... I was like, oh, that's not really my voice. But no, these are like experiences, like your time in Russia. I don't think that's... I assume those four years will always be inside of you. It's true. It's the same exact thing.

And how did it shape the way you think about what's next? Or does it put a stall on it? Do you become much pickier and more selective? I don't know. I just know that I feel like my tools are sharper. You know, I may have a few more tools now as I go into the next adventure, which is exciting. Do you know what that next adventure is? I might. I thought you might. Yeah.

And it's not a Metallica biopic. Ooh. There you go. I know you have a special effect on Metallica. I need to keep my hearing, David. I'm blown on by a thread. And you've had hearing issues in the past, and I don't think Metallica would be good for you. No. As much as I do love them.

Sometimes people when they begin their careers in either comic roles or writing comically and then they quote-unquote get serious Look back at the comic work with some I don't know diminishment I wonder how you feel about it because those those movies were antically wonderfully funny I mean my hope David is that there's a lot of humor in this movie and there's a lot of jokes in Stars born and you know all the filmmakers that I am of love Stanley Kubrick was hilarious hilarious and

So humor is, and I find that humor is, when my father was dying and I was holding him and my mother, and I just had a tuna fish sandwich, that's why it's in the movie where she says you smell like tuna fish. I remember holding my father who was unconscious at the time. My mother's saying, your breath smells like tuna fish. And I just thought, mom, he doesn't know. Yeah.

And, you know, there's humor everywhere. So I love comedy. In fact, they're the same thing, really. It's storytelling. It's storytelling. The film began in some ways with permission from the family. And then you present the film to the three children. And they're very painful things. The film toward the very end, Lenny is both bereft and pathetic. Yeah.

And you dramatize this by him coming on to, in a very clumsy, sloppy way, to a young director at Tanglewood. And I think that stands for a lot of things because I think we know that there were many such incidents. How did the kids react to the film when you showed it to them for the first time in all its glory and at times pain? Yeah.

You'd have to ask them, but my instinct is they'd say that if they had not seen anything or talked about anything until the last version of the film, I think it probably would have been pretty traumatic. But because they had been such a part of it at every turn, I would send them clips and they would come and see chunks of the film. So it was a gradual sort of change.

of the whole experience. But were they inhibiting in any way? Did their living presence and their permission for the film in any way say, you know what, if I do that, that's too far, it's a betrayal of them? Biographers have this problem. Never. You didn't have that problem? No, I mean, obviously, if you see the film. Bradley Cooper, thank you so much. Thank you. Oh, that was awesome. That was great. That was really awesome. ♪

Maestro, directed by Bradley Cooper and starring Cooper and Carey Mulligan, is in theaters now. I'm David Renwick. I hope you had a great holiday, whatever you did and whatever you ate. Thanks for listening today. See you next time.

The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbess of Tune Yards, with additional music by Alexis Quadrato and Louis Mitchell. This episode was produced by Max Balton, Adam Howard, Kalalia, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, and Louis Mitchell.

with guidance from Emily Botin and assistance from Mike Kutchman, Michael May, David Gable, and Alejandra Decat. And we had assistance this week from Rommel Wood. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherena Endowment Fund.

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