Inside Look at the Screenplay for Bradley Cooper's Maestro

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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!

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]

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