Bradley Cooper joined the list of A-list actors who became directors when he starred in and directed A Star Is Born. In Cooper’s upcoming entry part of the Netflix movie schedule, he’ll not only wear wild makeup to portray composer Leonard Bernstein, but will also sit in the director’s chair again. Originally, Steven Spielberg was going to direct Maestro, but gave the reins over to The Hangover actor after seeing 20 minutes of A Star Is Born. You better believe an f-bomb response from Spielberg was involved.
Martin Scorsese was going to be the original director of Maestro until the epic gangster film The Irishman fell into his lap. Then, Steven Spielberg agreed to direct the biopic, but felt he wouldn’t have time to do it and stepped down to produce it instead. Spielberg’s producing partner Kristie Macosko Krieger told Total Film that a screening of A Star Is Born convinced the Jaws director that Maestro’s lead Bradley Cooper should be taking over as director. Here’s his f-bomb response to the Silver Linings Playbook actor after just 20 minutes of the 2018 movie played:
Bradley said 'I’ve made a film called A Star is Born which is currently in post-production'. He invited us to watch it and 20 minutes in, Steven leant over to Bradley and said 'You are directing this fucking movie'.
When Steven Spielberg, a major figure in the New Hollywood era, orders you to direct a movie, you know you have to do it. I can’t blame Spielberg for his creative decision, as the Nightmare Alley actor showed in his directorial debut his powerful connection to music. He brought Lady Gaga to A Star is Born and taught himself how to sing to play Jackson Maine. There was also Cooper’s incredible use of songs to build a story by him and Lady Gaga collaborating to write songs better fit for their characters. If his musical contributions to the Oscar-winning film were noted, there’s no reason why he couldn’t create a musical masterpiece for the Netflix new release.
With Bradley Cooper’s new role in Maestro giving him the liberty to bring his vision to the movie, this meant doing things his own way. Macosko Krieger further explained how Cooper planned to change things around for the upcoming movie:
He didn’t want to make a standard biopic – he wanted to go deeper and decided that focusing on the marriage [between Bernstein and Felicia Montealegre] would be the best way to tell this story. He was exactly right and the film 100% landed in the right hands.
Without even seeing the movie yet, I could tell Krieger was right. It gets boring to me when I watch a biopic and it feels like I’m watching a series of facts zooming through the screen. If you want to get to know real-life figures, it helps to use the power of cinema to further explore them as people. Our hearts soared and broke watching what Bradley Cooper did with the characters of Aly and Jackson, so I’m imagining Maestro to be no different.
The forces of Steven Spielberg as co-producer and Bradley Cooper as star, co-writer, co-producer and director will be the dynamic duo we’ve needed. In the beginning, the ET director was going to direct the Wedding Crashers actor in American Sniper. However, Warner Brother’s budget constraints made it challenging for Spielberg’s version of the Iraq War-set drama to come into being, leading Clint Eastwood to take over. So it’s good that Maestro gave these two extraordinary directors a chance to collaborate. Even better, the duo plans to re-team for a new movie called Bullitt. While based on the 1968 Steve McQueen character, this will be an original story rather than a straightforward remake, with Cooper portraying the iconic role.
It only took 20 minutes of watching Bradley Cooper’s A Star Is Born for Steven Spielberg to recruit him to direct Maestro. As Cooper had amazing beginner’s luck filming his music remake, I’m confident the upcoming biopic will be talked about often during awards season. The Spielberg/Cooper-helmed project will viewable with your Netflix subscription on December 20th.
