Inside Look at the Screenplay for Bradley Cooper's Maestro
Here's your inside look at the screenplay for the Netflix biographical drama movie Maestro, directed by Bradley Cooper.
Maestro Cast:
Bradley Cooper, Carey Mulligan, Matt Bomer, Maya Hawke, Michael Urie and Sarah Silverman
Stream Maestro December 20, 2023 on Netflix!
Maestro Cast:
Bradley Cooper, Carey Mulligan, Matt Bomer, Maya Hawke, Michael Urie and Sarah Silverman
Stream Maestro December 20, 2023 on Netflix!
Transcript
00:00 A creative person sits alone in this great studio that you see here and writes all by himself
00:07 and communicates with the world in a very private way.
00:10 Leonard Bernstein is one of the most written about musicians maybe in history.
00:16 He was the first great American conductor and truly a pioneer.
00:21 All that is pretty well documented.
00:23 What's less well documented is what was going on in his private life.
00:28 Oh I tell you about the girl, I wrote letters but...
00:31 Felicia!
00:31 When I read it I thought this is the closest thing to anything I've been lucky enough to do in
00:37 theater. It had that kind of richness and breadth of an amazing stage heroine.
00:41 It had so much life to it.
00:43 It's my own arrogance to think I could survive on what he could give.
00:50 Felicia.
00:52 I read the script and I just thought wow this is the real deal.
00:55 This is a beautiful piece of writing and I couldn't believe I was going to be a part of this.
01:01 Look at me now.
01:03 Who's the one who hasn't been honest?
01:07 Bradley knew that he wanted to make the story of Leonard Bernstein but for him he needed to
01:12 make it his own. So he tried to figure out a way into the story that was new and different
01:17 and not a regular biopic. He just thought a cradle to grave story is not going to do
01:22 Leonard Bernstein justice because you could do a documentary.
01:24 And yet what we were trying to do was tell a story no one knew.
01:27 I know exactly who you are.
01:30 I've never had so much fun researching a project in my life because I didn't want to leave it.
01:36 I wanted to be in that world.
01:38 The research was vast. Bradley was relentless and wanted to pour through everything.
01:43 And then in interviewing many people that knew him, looking at so much footage,
01:48 and then the children who opened up their lives.
01:51 And in going through all of this primary source material what just rose to the top for us was
01:56 this incredibly complicated, fascinating, inspiring marriage between Felicia and Lenny.
02:02 I don't even know how much you mean to me.
02:05 It was a modern love story. They were ahead of their time.
02:09 I was always interested in how Felicia had become Lenny's anchor.
02:14 I'd really focused on the first half of Lenny's life when he was sort of in the ascent mode.
02:19 And Bradley was fascinated with how he struggled when he got older and certainly
02:23 how he very much struggled once he lost Felicia.
02:26 And what that said about that relationship and our quarrel was.
02:29 That's exactly right.
02:31 Wake up! Wake up! Take off your glasses!
02:32 Hate in your heart! Hate in your heart and anger!
02:37 There's this amazing musicality.
02:39 It's like a duet, the way that they finish each other's sentences.
02:42 I love the overlapping dialogue.
02:45 Josh Singer and I were able to write scenes where we could have that melody be played
02:50 between the two of them.
02:51 Well at least my heart is open.
02:54 The audacity to say that!
02:59 Have you forgotten about the four years where you couldn't decide if you wanted to marry me?
03:03 That's what I think.
03:04 This is a story I want to tell.
03:07 And this is a story that I, as an audience member, I could relate to.
03:10 We knew that this was the way to tell the story.
03:13 This was the way into Leonard Bernstein's life.
03:15 If someone doesn't sing in you, then nothing sings in you.
03:20 And if nothing sings in you, then you can't make music.
03:26 I think it's important now to tell a story about the universality of love.
03:33 I love people so much that it's hard for me to be alone.
03:36 There are so many different shapes that love can take.
03:40 And you know, love has many forms.
03:42 It doesn't have to be any one way.
03:44 As long as I believe it, which I assume is why I love people so much,
03:51 then I have to believe that in some remote corner of my soul there is a way out.
03:56 And that's why today the story is so resonant.
04:00 Because everybody understands what it's like to have a love that is not traditional.
04:05 [Music]