Movies - TV
Bradley Cooper Made A Hail Mary To Save Maestro’s Most Important Scene
By DEVIN MEENAN
While speaking with Emma Stone for Variety’s Actors on Actors series, Bradley Cooper discussed how difficult it was to direct the high point of “Maestro.”
“Maestro” is a biographical drama about musician Leonard Bernstein, and the scene depicts him conducting Gustav Mahler's Resurrection Symphony at the Ely Cathedral in 1973.
The scene was filmed on-site at the Ely Cathedral and with five cameras rather than the movie’s usual two. Cooper had to conduct a real A-Team orchestra for the scene.
Cooper explained that he felt immense pressure while filming and added, “So I messed up the whole first day. I kept messing up. And the minute I was behind tempo, it's over.”
Unhappy with his performance, Copper gathered the crew in the cathedral the next day and did one more take, which is the one that ended up in the movie.
According to Cooper, the orchestra’s timpanist approached him afterwards and said, “‘You know, what you did yesterday, it was total s**t you know. Today, you conducted us.’”