Bradley Cooper Asked Carey Mulligan to ‘Bare Our Souls to Each Other’ as Prep for Maestro Roles

Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan searched deep Maestro.

In an interview with Mulligan’s November Vogue cover, held before the SAG-AFTRA strike, Cooper talked about how he and a co-star prepared to play composer Leonard Bernstein and his wife, actress Felicia Montealegre.

“I knew her ability,” Cooper, 48, said Vogue. “All I asked her to do was make preparations with me; I said, ‘Are you going to go down this road where we actually bare our souls to each other?’ And she said, ‘Okay, let’s do it, I’m in.’ ”

Mulligan, 38, told the Maestro she went through “the most intensive preparation I’ve ever done for a film,” including figuring out everything from Montealegre’s accent to her relationship with Bernstein.

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Carey Mulligan on the cover VogueIssue for November 2023.

Jack Davison for Vogue

Leonard Bernstein’s daughter on the ‘surreal’ viewing experience Maestro Film about her family: ‘What a ride’

That preparation, the actress told Vogueit included a “dream workshop” with Cooper, who also directed and co-wrote the film.

“I guess Bradley has always done this kind of thing, using your dreams to connect your subconscious to the character’s subconscious, but it was new to me,” Mulligan said. “But I had to go all in.”

Calling the relationship between the famed composer and his wife “deep”, Mulligan added: “They’ve got a fire going for each other. You can hear it: there’s footage of them exchanging anecdotes and it’s like they’re dancing.”

The two-time Oscar nominee added that Maestro not a biopic, but “It’s a movie about a marriage. A very complicated marriage.”

Enter Carey Mulligan and Bradley Cooper Maestro (2023).

Jason McDonald/Netflix

Watch Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan in Moving Trailer for Leonard Bernstein Biopic ‘Maestro’

After Maestro had its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival last month, critics have shared mostly positive reviews of the new film, which marks Cooper’s next directorial effort after 2018’s A star is born.

“We expect the film to ‘explain’ their relationship,” Diversity critic Owen Gleiberman wrote how Maestro brings Cooper’s and Mulligan’s characters closer. “Cooper does something more daring: he presents it, from every angle, in all its mystery, as a romantic partnership as unique as any other.”

Total movie critic Jane Crowther compared the film to last year’s TARin which Cate Blanchett played a fictional composer who studied under Bernstein.

“This year, she can—literally and figuratively—pass the baton to Bradley Cooper, who disappears in his performance as Leonard Bernstein,” wrote Crowther, adding that Cooper and Mulligan “are organically compelling as a partnership, dancing around each other linguistically in a way that is exciting to watch.”

Maestro is on Netflix on December 20th.

Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education