Bradley Cooper as Leonard Bernstein (film scene) Photo: picture alliance / Everett Collection | ©Netflix
From BZ/dpa
Hollywood star Bradley Cooper says he practiced conducting for six years to impersonate the famous conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein – for a scene of almost six and a half minutes.
“This scene worried me so much because we played it live,” the industry portal “Indiewire” quoted the 48-year-old as saying at a screening of the drama “Maestro” in New York.
Cooper said he filmed it together with the London Symphony Orchestra. “I was recorded live, I had to conduct them. And I spent 6 years learning how to conduct 6 minutes and 21 seconds of music.”
According to a report in the British newspaper The Guardian, the London orchestra played Gustav Mahler’s Second Symphony under Cooper’s direction. To do this, he not only had to learn conducting itself, but also how to conduct an orchestra in Bernstein’s style.
The drama, produced by Netflix, tells the life of the American musician Bernstein (1918-1990), who, among other things, composed the music for the musical “West Side Story”. The film, in which Carey Mulligan plays Bernstein’s wife, is scheduled to hit US cinemas in November and be available on Netflix from December 20th.