Maestro has quickly become one of the favorites in the Oscar race in many categories, including a frontrunner in the Best Lead Actor and Best Lead Actress categories for its stars Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan, respectively. Also directed and co-written by Cooper, the film tells the story of legendary composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein through the lens of his relationship with his wife Felicia Montealegre Cohn.
This press conference with Cooper and Mulligan was an early stop on the press tour, which got off to a later start than one would expect considering the recent strikes prevented the duo from promoting the passion project. However, now that they are allowed to speak about the movie, they’re making up for lost time.
Maestro press conference with Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan
Indeed, this incredible level of control cannot be better seen than in one scene in which Cooper as Bernstein conducts Mahler’s second symphony in the Ely Cathedral. A crux of the film emotionally, this scene is also one of the film’s most dazzling technical feats. Hearing Cooper talk about the logistics behind this scene
“The Ely cathedral scene where he’s conducting was terrifying. I mean, it was really terrifying. Because some people say like, ‘It’s okay, if you mess it up, it’s gonna be okay.’ No, actually, if I mess that up, the whole movie doesn’t work. Because you go like, ‘he’s not a good conductor. What’s everybody talking about? Why is she saying, ‘I don’t see him standing in the center of the Sun.’ And that’s me conducting the London Symphony Orchestra. And that’s six minutes and 21 or 23 seconds of music that, luckily, I had Gustavo Dudamel and Yannick Séguin, who were kind enough for years to teach me it. And I had the video of him conducting that orchestra in the ‘70s in that space, but even with all that, conducting is impossible.
So, the first day, I messed up. I kept getting behind tempo. I was forgetting where the time change happened. And it was that moment where you’re like, ‘I can’t believe I’m messing it up in front of the greatest in the world.’ I mean, London Symphony Orchestra — top three orchestras in the world. It was horrible.
Also Read: Maestro Venice Film Festival Review – Bradley Cooper is a Certified Talented Filmmaker
I went to bed and texted Steve Morrow, the sound mixer, ‘Do we have it?’ If you’re texting the sound mixer, and you’re the director if we have the scene, you’re in trouble. And he wrote back, ‘I think we have it.’ And I knew we didn’t. Because I had the luxury of being so early to set the next day, it was an empty cathedral. I walked in, and I knew I wasn’t actually shooting it properly. I was shooting it out of fear. I had so many setups — which the movie doesn’t have — out of fear that I was gonna mess it up.
But the truth is, the scene was only about Felicia coming to see him and seeing that there is no hate in his heart. So I was like, ‘so then show he’s got to conduct it.’ So everybody waited, and we brought in the techno crane and created this one shot. I asked everybody back in. I said a prayer in front of everybody to Lenny, thanking him — actually not asking for anything, thanking him. And we did it one more time. And that’s what’s in the movie. And I did conduct them. And it was it was crazy. Actually, the timpanist came running up, and he said, ‘Sorry, excuse me. Yesterday, you totally fucked that up. You did not conduct us yesterday. We were very good. So we’re fine. But today, you just conducted us, and you have to use that.’ I said, ‘No, no, we’re going to use it.’ He said, ‘You can’t use yesterday,’ and I was like, ‘I know. I know.’”
Maestro is now in theaters and hits Netflix on December 20.
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