Oscar winner Emma Stone and Bradley Cooper had met in 2007, when they both played supporting roles in the indie heavy metal comedy “The Rocker,” starring Rainn Wilson. They then reunited on Cameron Crowe’s 2015 commercial misfire Aloha.
They’ve became such good friends that Stone brought her mother to Cooper’s house to watch a cut of “Maestro,” his second film as writer-director after “A Star Is Born.”
In “Maestro,” Cooper plays legendary stage and screen composer Leonard Bernstein opposite Carey Mulligan as Bernstein’s wife, Felicia.
Cooper is bursting with praise for Stone’s tour-de-force performance in “Poor Things” as Bella Baxter. In her latest collaboration with Yorgos Lanthimos — with whom Stone first worked in 2018’s “The Favourite” — she plays a Victorian woman who’s been implanted with a child’s brain and must find a way to regain her footing in European society.
COOPER: I was blown away by the film. I’ll never forget the FaceTime we had after I saw it.
STONE: You’ll never forget it?
COOPER: I’m serious. Just be here with me. Just breathe and let me talk. I love you so dearly as a friend, but to see you soar as an artist, it was really moving. Just your effortless abandon. There’s absolutely no one else who could have done that. I assume you didn’t shoot in order?
STONE: No.
COOPER: So how were you able to track her evolution? Because you’re basically playing a baby to a 35-year-old in two hours.
STONE: Yorgos told me about the overall structure of the story after we made “The Favourite.” We realized we needed to create stages for her, so we made it five. In Baxter’s house, we basically did stage one and stage five, because we only had that location then. And then we did the middle of the movie.
STONE: We went to Budapest for monthlong rehearsal process with the other actors. And then we would have solo rehearsals with just him and me where we would work on the walk for entire day. I went into it being more literal than I needed to be, watching videos of a toddler learning to walk or how someone says their first words. Because she’s in this fully formed, adult healthy body, her relationship to not knowing how to walk — it’s not even like you could compare it to someone who’s just been in an accident and is recovering and learning to walk. Her brain hasn’t caught up, which was great because there was nothing to compare it to.
STONE: Like, “Does this work? Does that not work? This looks stupid.” It all looks a little stupid, but that’s part of the fun.
COOPER: It’s all absolutely believable.
STONE: I’m glad you feel that way. But it’s a metaphor. It’s not based on a true story.
COOPER: That’s what his movies feel like. It feels like I’m watching this film, and then they’re going to take it somewhere else.
STONE: We’ve already had dinner every night; we’ve already been all over each other in rehearsals and have made fun of each other and been embarrassed. There’s nothing that really feels like it’s off-limits when you’re on set, because you’re with your friends.
STONE: My mother and I were an absolute wreck by the middle of the film, and in awe of what you were doing, what Carey was doing, your direction. That conducting scene, which I was in full body chills for — how long was that?
COOPER: Six minutes.
STONE: It felt like I was watching true conductor, master at work.
COOPER: I messed up the first day. The minute I was behind tempo, it was over. So I woke up in the morning, walked into that church, and it was empty — we’re not supposed to shoot there that day. I got to give it one more shot. I brought everybody back in, and I actually said a prayer to Lenny in front of everybody, like, “Thank you for this opportunity. We’re going to do it again.” That’s what’s in the movie. It was one take
COOPER: My memory was that I was actually floating above the orchestra and that I was able to point to each musician.
STONE: Do you think that’s where conductors get to?
COOPER: Singing at the Oscars, playing at Glastonbury, didn’t even compare to what that experience was.
STONE: I remember having dinner at your house, and you were talking about Lenny and idea for the opening shot. So to see that in the film years later, it was just so personally fulfilling to watch. I heard Spielberg was going to direct?
COOPER: He was, and he talked to me about potentially acting in it, because he knew how much I loved conducting since I was a kid. Obsessed with it.
STONE: How did you get into conducting as a kid?
COOPER: Tom and Jerry, Bugs Bunny. I asked Santa Claus for baton when I was around 8, and then I would just conduct because there was classical music playing in my house.
COOPER: I’ve done so much work on believing I’m conductor that if I ever had the chance to play one, there’s years of rehearsal inside me. And when you believe you are something … That’s all we’re trying to do anyway.
And then Spielberg wasn’t going to direct it. I had just finished “A Star Is Born,” and I had really found what I loved, which is writing and directing. I just said, “Well, what would you think if I took it on?” I showed him “A Star Is Born,” and he said, “Yeah.” Then I had to get the rights to the music from the kids, and I started doing research. That’s how it started in the end of 2017.
COOPER: I feel like you couldn’t have made “Poor Things” if you didn’t have tremendous amount of prep, and it’s the same thing with “Maestro.” This wasn’t like you got a call, and in six months you’re going to do it. This had to have taken years.
STONE: I didn’t direct “Poor Things.” You were also writing, directing, producing. You were in every single facet of that experience. That’s so much to take on. But it is interesting that these projects began in 2017, and then we made them years later. For both of us, this lived in the same frame of time, where even when you’re not actively prepping, it’s weirdly working its way inside of you because you’re thinking about it so much.
COOPER: It’s a gift.
STONE: It’s huge gift. It’s also scary because you have so much time to think about everything that could go wrong or the ways that you could fuck this up when you love something so deeply.
COOPER: I’ve just recently realized that maybe I’m a bit of a control freak.
COOPER: Yeah. But I knew that if “Maestro” was going to mess up, it was all on me. I was not beholden to anybody else. There was a freedom in that, as well as huge burden.
COOPER: But that’s why this kind of thing feels different. I’ll carry it with me the rest of my life. It has changed who I am as an artist.
And when I watch your performance in that film, there’s no version where I don’t think that’s the same case for you. Even though I’m not physically naked, I was completely naked putting on this prosthetic and being him and the way he talked. I felt so vulnerable.
Just watching your performance, you had to give yourself permission, which I had to do as well, to just jump off the cliff every day, in terms of giving over to people laughing at us on set, quite honestly. Did you feel that there was that level of abandon?
STONE: I did. But Yorgos says all the time that the final product is on him. There’s captain of the ship that I fully trust and have such admiration and immense respect for. In that circumstance, people did laugh at me — he would laugh at me. He’d be like, “That one was crazy.” But that was the best because there’s no eggshells. We can fight, we can laugh, all of that is totally free. And when it comes to any of the legitimate nudity, we had this tiny, tiny crew. Robbie Ryan, our cinematographer, looks at me like I’m a table or a lamp. It was amazing. He was just like, “Whatever.”
COOPER: I’m not even thinking about you actually being physically naked. I just meant like your performance. It’s like, there’s no way she just winged it. Do you know what I mean? You’re sick talented. But that had to be a tremendous amount of work.
STONE: But it was the most joyous work ever.
COOPER: You’re going to bring her to everything you do because she’s a part of you. I really do think that. Does that sound too hokey?
COOPER: There’s a fearlessness that I saw that’s not going to go away, that she gave you.
STONE: I hope not. It was a life-changing experience, just as an actor.
COOPER: What she demanded of you and what Lenny demanded of me, there’s no way it’s not going to translate.
