To put it simply, Netflix’s Maestro, a biopic by Bradley Cooper on the late music conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein, was yet another one of those movies that received mixed reviews. Meaning: While it was critically acclaimed on the one hand, it failed to deliver some of the key expectations of the general audiences on the other.
Although Cooper did an epic job of managing both the directing and writing of the movie all the while starring in the lead, fans just couldn’t ignore how the movie had skipped to cover one major element of Bernstein’s life: the fact that he was gay. And after much disapproval from fans over it, Cooper has finally decided to address the issue.
Also Read: Bradley Cooper’s Severe Maestro Method Acting: Mentally Aged Himself, Did Less Work as “Old Lenny”
Bradley Cooper’s Reason For Not Openly Showing Bernstein As Gay
While recently appearing on the Variety Awards Circuit Podcast, Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan, who embodied the respective characters of Leonard Bernstein and Felicia Montealegre, talked about their romance-musical biopic, Maestro.
During this, the onscreen Bernstein and Montealegre portrayers were asked about how they didn’t openly label Leonard “Lenny” Bernstein as bisexual or “call their marriage a knowingly ‘open marriage.’” To this, Cooper said:
“I don’t remember having any marco-identifying label conversations on either. (…) We never talked about it in terms of categorizing.”
Continuing, he explained how their conversations about the biopic basically involved them discussing the evolution of the characters’ marriage and going forward with that idea instead of particularly categorizing the late conductor’s sexuality in it.
“It was more about asking Carey [Mulligan] to go on this journey and sending her scenes and the script as it evolved. The story and the evolution of this marriage and this relationship.”
Adding to Cooper’s statements, Carey Mulligan shared how her Maestro co-star focused more on the different “ages, stages, and versions” of the character instead of especially focusing on showing him as gay.
“From our text thread, there are a million versions of him as Lenny from 2019 onwards. All these different ages, stages, and versions. And then pages and pages of the script.”
Thus, to put it in a nutshell, Bradley Cooper didn’t feel the need to specifically point out Bernstein’s sexuality but instead tried to concentrate more on the main storyline that focused on everything he did with and achieved in his life, which ultimately included his sexuality in it as well.
Bradley Cooper “Trained For Months” To Get His Conducting Right For Maestro
Though most fans must be unaware of this fact, Bradley Cooper did, in fact, do the conducting himself in Maestro — even if it meant training for months to capture Leonard Bernstein’s style of conducting perfectly!
As per the information shared by Netflix:
“[Bradley] Cooper trained for months to capture Bernstein’s infamously energetic style of conducting.”
For this, Cooper worked with Philadelphia Orchestra music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who acted as his consultant while he trained to perfect his conducting. And the end result was as sweet as ever, as was seen in the movie.
“I can’t take credit at all for Bradley’s performance,” Nézet-Séguin said. “He really got Bernstein. It was insane, every gesture, every facial expression.”
Even though fans may not have been too happy with Bradley Cooper’s Maestro for one element that he decided not to deliver specifically, the film on Netflix still managed to garner multiple nominations for some of the major-est awards, including the Critics Choice Awards and even the Golden Globes!
