Bradley Cooper (A Star is born, american sniper) is currently shooting a film for Netflix dedicated to one of his most illustrious compatriots, the American composer, conductor and pedagogue Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) to whom we owe the music of West Side Story. Cooper is not only the lead actor in this biopic titled Maestro, but he is also the director, encouraged by the huge success of A Star is born (2018) that he had directed. British actress Carey Mulligan (Drive, An Education) will portray Bernstein’s wife, Felicia Montealegre.
The film will be released on Netflix in 2023. The streaming platform unveiled the first images on Monday May 30, via social networks. Spread over two tweets that went around the web, five photos, three in black and white of Cooper in the clothes of a young Bernstein, and two in color – the most striking – of the actor transformed into an elderly Bernstein, were posted on Twitter, via two different accounts on the platform, including one on the global Netflix account.
From the set of Maestro pic.twitter.com/RFSZb1aX1i
—Netflix (@netflix) May 30, 2022
At the same time, another tweet, posted on the Netflix Films account, revealed a third black and white photo of this teaser mini-album.
From the set of MAESTRO. pic.twitter.com/y3qsYILk6P
— NetflixFilm (@NetflixFilm) May 30, 2022
What the photos posted on Monday reveal is first of all an astounding makeup job, especially for the scenes with Leonard Bernstein in his mature years. The composer, incorrigible smoker, died at only 72 years old. Filming started in May. Initially, it was Steven Spielberg, author of a highly acclaimed remake of West Side Story released at the end of 2021, which was to ensure the production of the film. He offered the lead role to Bradley Cooper, 47. But the latter, who really wanted to start writing and directing the project, was able to convince the filmmaker to also entrust him with the staging after showing him A Star is bornrecalls the site of First. Spielberg remains at the heart of the project as a co-producer with Martin Scorsese, among others.
Since his childhood, Bradley Cooper, 47, has always dreamed of being a conductor, he confided in an interview relayed by the site of variety (article in English) at the end of January 2022. He knows certain masterpieces of the great classical repertoire by heart, which will help him to interpret Bernstein, ardent, on his conductor’s desk, he is certain. Quoted by variety, Cooper recalled last January: “I wanted to be a conductor since I was a kid. I was obsessed with it, and when I was 8, I asked Santa Claus for a conductor’s baton. Listening to music, falling in love with it, really being able to know every moment of a piece, like Tchaikovsky’s Opus 35 in D major, his Violin Concerto… I could do it as if I knew it completely without really being able to speak the language, of course.”