Lady Gaga Explains How Bradley Cooper Made Magic with A Star Is Born

Before he began the first take of the first scene of his A Star Is Born remake, Bradley Cooper was absolutely certain of one thing: “The more personal you make something, the more chance it has to connect with and be received by people.”

“Isnt that what were always looking for? Someone to actually stand up and talk to you?” Cooper said on Monday night, after a Screen Actors Guild screening of his critically-acclaimed film. “Youre compelled to listen when its authentic. Thats all we were trying to do this whole time.”

Cooper took this mission so seriously that he and co-screenwriters Eric Roth and Will Fetters pulled biographical details from his, co-star Lady Gagas, and Sam Elliotts own backstories, weaving them into the script so that the actors felt tethered to truth. For Lady Gaga, this meant recalling early-career insecurities and performances in drag bars. For Elliott, who played Jacksons brother, this meant having long conversations with Cooper about their families. Speaking at a post-screening Q&A moderated by Vanity Fair Executive West Coast Editor Krista Smith, Elliott said of those early conversations, “We talked about our moms, things that were dear to us.”

For Cooper, who has been sober for almost 15 years, this meant channeling his own addiction past to play a musician overcome by emotional pain and demons. Coopers quest for authenticity required the first-time filmmaker to clear other hurdles—like playing the guitar, singing, and performing live for surprised audience members during actual music festivals like Glastonbury. But the scenes in which Jackson plumbed the depths of addiction—picking a drunken fight with Ally, for example—were more frightening for Cooper than any concert scenario.

“I was terrified to know that we both were going to have to go to this place, specifically Jackson, and what he was going to have to provoke in [Ally],” Cooper explained of the couples fight, which precedes the films tragic climax. “Oddly enough, she provoked it in him when she brought up his dad, which really allowed me as Jackson to firmly embrace how dark I wanted to go as him. Thats only because she risked saying that and I felt it. I felt the risk of what she knew that meant to him, how much she was hurting him in that moment. It really did feel real, which is all we try to do. . .I know as an actor thats what Im always looking for, so thats all I tried to create, an environment where everybody is talking to each other and risking everything.”

Lady Gaga said she was impressed by the way Cooper managed to embody this self-destructing musician while simultaneously maintaining complete control as director. “It was like a magic trick for us. . . . Really, he was like Houdini.”

“Were having this extremely emotional, awful conversation with each other and—at the same time—you have to completely trust your director. In a moment where Im almost untrusting of him and angry with him and insulted by him, Im also, in the back of my mind, in the space of comfort, in the space of love,” said Gaga. “What was very special about that scene, for me anyways, was the themes of alcoholism and the theme of codependency and addiction—that is something that has affected me in my life. To share that with him was very, very special to me. He really honored that. Its an interesting thing to feel afraid and yet unafraid at the same time. I felt that way the whole time we filmed. That is a very heavy scene, but I will say that sense of vulnerability I felt this entire time we were filming, it was that exact thing—fear, but no fear.”

Cooper said that—for the scenes where Jackson was his most inebriated, “especially the Grammy scene”—he was able to stay in character while directing.

“Thank God the actors were willing to allow me to direct them sort of in that state, because it was easier to stay in that space,” said Cooper. “It just took me a little longer to communicate what I wanted.”

Another powerhouse scene takes place between Cooper and Elliott, after their characters have spent much of the film festering over family resentments and unspoken pain. After Jackson finally gets treatment at a rehabilitation facility, Jackson confesses that his brother has always been his idol. The way Cooper blurted out those words on set wrecked Elliott.

“It coal-axed me,” the actor recalled. “I knew what was coming, but I didnt really know how it was going to come out. That was the end of the long gestation of that relationship. When Bradley got out and hemmed and hawed a little bit, it just struck me.”

But it wasnt just the way that Cooper summoned Jacksons unspoken pain for that scene.

“To see Bradley get out, perform that beat, shut the door”—and then immediately shift into director mode—“and pick up a monitor, walk around to the front of the truck. . . Im there like, What the fuck, man? Im still in the scene. . . .It was a really incredible moment for me to see Bradley-actor [switch into] Bradley-director. We did two takes of that.”

Lady Gaga interjected, “Isnt it amazing in that scene—theres so much that is said, but its also whats unsaid that really grabs you. If a man can make you cry backing up a pickup truck. . .”

Even for scenes in A Star Is Born where Coopers character was not present, the first-time filmmaker said he insisted on physically being within arms reach for each of his actors. On previous projects, he felt most comfortable when filmmakers like David O. Russell and Clint Eastwood opted to sit with him rather than in video village, watching from a distance behind a set of monitors with a pack of producers. “I always remember on American Sniper, the very tight shot with a very horrific moment, Clint was literally right next to the camera [talking me through it]. When the director is actually right there it feels as if—and thats what I try to do—it feels like youre not alone risking it, that the director is right there with you and has just as much to lose. I completely took that, because I know as an actor, if the director is right here, and I feel it, Im going to be much more willing to risk.”

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