Emma Stone & Bradley Cooper | Actors on Actors

because you know Bella is wandering around Lisbon for a good amount of that and I was just, you know, just looking and we did something similar in Maestro, I liked that, but we found out that I was so adamant that we film in these locations because I wanted the same thing where we just walked around because Carrie did a lot of work and it was like we owed it to ourselves to film in those places, yeah. Because we can live and then you don't know what's going to happen, yeah, yeah, that's me. I'm a big believer in walking into Backer's house and seeing Bella's room for the first time like a week before we filmed.

It's very emotional for me to be like this, this is how you guys have seen Bella's room and it's so detailed and beautiful and like the walls are literally quilted. It was the same with the costumes. Holly Wadington, who made our costumes, was like every part of the process. It's simply the most detailed film I've ever worked on. I remember walking through a lot of the movie we shot at her house in Fairfield and I remember walking up the stairs and into her room where he lived after she passed away and they lived together. and like you know the wallpaper and the bed and just, oh my gosh, yeah, I mean, you were really crazy about her.

She was interpreting a metaphor for a person. You were playing a very real created world that is the same as you. able to walk out of habit when when I had the LED ocean screens it played the sound of the ocean for you uh no no no because we had to record the sound for the movie, are you okay? It was a phone, oh yeah. okay, we're current, man, that's not going to throw us off, we're professionals, uh, okay, Bradley, could you talk to me about directing the cathedral scene? I would love to, Emma, ​​thank you so much, Bradley Cooper, you know, this was such a complicated movie.

To structure and figure out what I was going to do and I knew I didn't want to make a biopic, but I also wanted a biopic, yeah, Myro myestro, but I didn't want to, I can't do it. You do, myestro, one of the best voices in The Biz, everyone, and that's what I keep telling people, no one listens to me, oh, anyway, he goes on, but I knew that if I put his music on the movie, that would do everything that book would do. do it anyway, if you want to learn about Martin scris just watch all his movies instead of watching interviews, well you know, from the beginning I knew I wanted to do all his music and I wanted a classical pillar for his classical music and then by his musical theater and he loved Mer Gustaf Waller and I, when I was researching it, for some reason I never heard Mer's music, I don't know how I missed it, but I missed it and for me it is the most powerful piece of music I have ever heard in my life, yes, and he directed it.

It was one of the first things I looked into six years ago. There's a YouTube video of him conducting an Elely Cathedral, this huge 1970s Gothic cathedral with the London Symphony Orchestra. sums up everything you'll ever want to know about him as a director: his ability to harness that music to be in the center of the Sun and not burn, but just shine the light back to the U.S. I thought well if he could figure out how to direct alone like those six minutes at the end that could be that piece of that pillar of the movie, yeah, the benefit was that I knew about it six years ago and then I started doing research and I was able to get the footage of just him directing, so I literally had him direct that piece, oh my God, and then Gustavo Dudl was kind enough to work with me for the last six years, he directed that piece with the LA Phil at the Hollywood Bowl and I was with him from the first rehearsal to the last rehearsal, oh Oh my God, and then 3 and a half years later I traveled with him to Berlin and spent 2 weeks with him with the Phil Haron of Berlin, that's great, you know, possibly the best orchestra in the world. world in one of the best rooms in the world, that room, if you ever get a chance, you can hear every single instrument, it was built in the '60s and it's still like one of the best rooms in the world, uh, and he did that. that same piece with them and then Yanique Segin, who is the guy who was really like the other part of Lenny musically in the movie, he was with me throughout the shoot and made videos and I actually had a headset on when I did that. and he was in another room making sure I knew the tempo and the time changes even though I couldn't hear it because it was so loud, oh my god, I made this movie fearlessly and like us.

We talked about that, you know, there's really nothing on the floor of The Cutting Room within the scenes, they're just what they are, yeah, which was wonderful for the

actors

and also challenging, but in that scene I had like five different setups. and I realized because I was all out of fear that I couldn't disconnect, I didn't consciously know it at the time, but the rest of the movie is like two cameras, you don't even know it and then we finished, we had very short days, yeah, but that me and that one day I think it was a Thursday I kept ruining everything because we were doing it live, that was live with London with 75 members of the orchestra 130 and then the whole background and these are all unicorns like them.

You are the best they do. The concert that the Master showed me like a picture of him when he was four with two wooden spoons was when I started, so imagine you know I played ology, it's like you're in the you. you're in similar finishes, yeah, you know, and you're and you're like, okay, I've played well this whole time and to be on that podium, yeah, oh my gosh, and directing is the hardest thing. People always like what you direct. It's like you're not looking at it, ex, you're moving the tempo up a little bit to make sure and you're also reminding everyone of these things you worked on in rehearsals.

Fortunately, they are the best orchestra in the world, yes. but I still had to direct them because the shot is for everyone to see, so I messed up the whole first day. I kept making mistakes and the moment I was behind Tempo it was over, like you can't, I'm lost and imagine that. I'm doing this in front of everything, I'm Lenny, I'm directing it and I thought and they don't really give you anything, you know this and I thought, oh God, it was a nightmare, it was total and I went to bed and I texted the sound mixer, who received a text message at like 2: a. m. of the director saying, "Do we have the question mark?

That's how vulnerable he was, of course, but it's total." It makes sense, but then he wrote back to me and said, "I think so." I texted Jason before the musical and the other guy and said, "We got it, you know, it's like a bug, like we did it right." We got it, of course, but we didn't have it, even though we didn't have it, for you to do it again, no, so I woke up the next morning, we were supposed to film that scene outdoors. with the cathedral there was a scene of her driving that didn't make it into the movie, so we had a techno Ukraine for that and honestly, again I feel like Lenny kept showing me what to do the whole time.

I really did, so it was that I always prepared before the crew call, so I was at work six or five hours before the crew call and I became Lenny and then I could walk around the set a little bit, maybe time even before anyone came to the crew, so because we were all staying in that small town, elely filmed in the cathedral where he played. I walked into that church and it was empty. We weren't supposed to film there that day and I just looked up and I just had a conversation with him and I thought I have to give it one more chance and everyone came in.

Maddie came in with handle Scott Saka for the team. I said guys before leaving. I know we have time that won't last. It took a long time, we brought the Techno Crane and it was so crazy like this huge, you know, 40 foot techno crane that brought the insides of the cathedral and I asked everyone to wait and I set up the one-on-one shot that it becomes his reveal, the police reveal is right on his right shoulder, yeah, and it took, as you know, an hour and a half to set it up. I had like the audio from the day before and we left and I bowed and made sure. the camera was able to shoot and then I was being her and we had set it up for six and a half minutes and then I brought everyone back and I actually said a prayer to Lenny in front of everyone, like thank you for this opportunity.

We're just G, we're going to do it again and that's what's in the movie, it was one take and I did it and when the time was up the guy you know from the back came running up and said, "You know what you're doing." I did it yesterday it was total you know today you drove us I was like no I don't know I know I know no no you don't understand you can't use yesterday at all I was like no no no we're we're not we're we don't have it we have it we have it he's like that's incredible it was crazy yeah and it was really like and my feeling my memory of that that took cu the other one that was just in my head was that I was actually floating above the orchestra and that I was able to point out each musician , do you think that's what could?

Well, he talked like, you know, it was, I don't know, but it was the most you know, seeing at the Oscars, like playing at Glenberry, which I thought would be the things that I wouldn't even do, they don't even compare to what it was. that experience, so you're saying they were horrible experiences, no, but it was like really and I'm not and everyone. and and and I feel like everyone felt like it wasn't just me, everyone, something really happened in that, that's what it feels like when you're watching the movie, it was really crazy, it really is, I don't know.

What the hell happened, but it did, but the only thing I can say is that you know all the preparation, you know that those kinds of things can only happen if you put in the work and that's what I see in your movie, it's like there's no way that She would just improvise it. You know what I mean? You are very talented, but it had to be an enormous amount of work. It was the most joyful job ever. Yes, by the way, I never felt it was difficult. You know, people say. It was so difficult it's like it wasn't difficult it's not the word difficult it's not the word I don't think it ever when it comes no when you're enjoying it yes completely it's beautiful we're so lucky to be able to do this This is like it's a joy yeah it only real.

Did you ever think you'd ever play Franken? You know, a woman Frank was right. I mean, no. So when Euro first introduced you to this, what was your initial reaction? I was completely in love. I was like please because he wasn't even telling me. We were having dinner and I thought, so what are you going to do next? He says, oh, there's this, you know, this project, there's this book that You know this book by Alice Gray and working with Tony. You know who again wrote the favorite and what it's about and then he gives me this woman Bella and her.

You know, I mean the brief explanation of that story. It's pretty crazy and the woman who jumps off the bridge now that she's pregnant is going to take the baby's brain and put it in her head and resuscitate her and then, you know, she goes through life and meets all these men and they're Like You know, they try to possess her and she drives him crazy or whatever and I was like, I'd love to do that if you were free and that sounds amazing, yeah, and he's like, No, it wasn't a throw, you know, that's what a of the things that I'm working on, um, but it was me from the beginning, it was like something was screaming inside me, it sounded like the most incredible thing and it's based on a book, just so you know.

There's obviously a lot there already, but she's my favorite character of all time. I don't know how I'll ever be able to play another character that makes me feel the way she made me feel and that's it. Okay, yeah, that's amazing and by the way, I would say you're going to bring her into everything you do because she's a part of you. I really think that sounds like it too. Hoke, I believe it though. do it, yes, because there is a courage that I saw, that is not going to disappear, that she gave you, I hope not, I hope not, no, no, it was, it was, it was very, yes, it was an experience that changed a lot your life, as well as. as an actor as an actor what she did she demanded of you and what Lenny demanded of me I thought there's no way it's not going to be translated they are impositions it's like impossible with you the lessons you learned yes yes um great thanks friend I thought Let's finish with who to leave I love you coach, that was amazing.