Interview

Sound Designer

Double Oscar Nominee Richard King Unveils the Aural Secrets of “Oppenheimer” and “Maestro”

Richard King, one of Hollywood’s most successful sound designers, is known for creating increasingly complex aural environments that help achieve a director’s vision, giving the movie its own rhythm and texture. Over the past two decades, he’s won four Academy Awards. And at this year’s Oscars, he’s nominated for two more for his contributions to Bradley Cooper’s Leonard Bernstein biopic Maestro and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, an R-rated historical drama about the first atomic bomb,

By Craigh Barboza  |  March 6, 2024
“Maestro” Oscar-Nominated Re-Recording Mixers on Building Emotion With & Without Music

In Bradley Cooper’s Maestro, the music is flipped. Tracking the arc of Leonard Bernstein’s career in tandem with his loving but complicated marriage to Chilean actress Felicia Monteleagre (Carey Mulligan), the film’s music is Bernstein’s music, playing as it did over the course of the composer’s life, whether that’s performed on stage or worked out in the studio at the family’s Fairfield country house. When we revisit emotionally charged, private moments from Bernstein’s life,

By Susannah Edelbaum  |  February 27, 2024

Interview

Production Designer

“Maestro “ Production Designer Kevin Thompson on Building the Bernstein’s Lives From Concert Halls to Connecticut

Bradley Cooper’s Maestro follows the arc of Leonard Bernstein’s career, but his rise from a lucky break at Carnegie Hall to becoming a household name as a composer and conductor is secondary in the film to the development of his relationship with his actress wife, Felicia Montealegre. The couple had three children and split their time between the Upper West Side Manhattan, where they eventually settled in an apartment in the Dakota, and a country home in Fairfield,

By Susannah Edelbaum  |  January 11, 2024
“Maestro” Sound Mixer Steven Morrow on Recreating Mahler’s “Resurrection” at the Ely Cathedral

Bradley Cooper knew Maestro was going to be the next film he directed before the proverbial ink dried on A Star Is Born (2018), his feature debut, which he starred in alongside Lady Gaga about a troubled musician’s relationship with alcohol. The adaptation, deservingly so, went on to be nominated for eight Academy Awards and won Best Original Song for “Shallow.” This time, the multi-hyphenated actor trades in a guitar for a baton to embody Leonard Bernstein,

By Daron James  |  January 9, 2024

Interview

Costume Designer

“Maestro” Costume Designer Mark Bridges on Charting the Bernstein’s Ever-Changing Style

It’s no accident that Maestro (on Netflix and in theaters) begins with Bradley Cooper’s elderly Leonard Bernstein reflecting on how much he misses his late wife Felicia, portrayed by Carey Mulligan. The biopic, of course, includes bits of Bernstein’s greatest hits as a composer and conductor, from West Side Story to Mahler’s 2nd Symphony. But the movie concentrates mainly on the complicated relationship between the bisexual Bernstein and the stylish actress who found herself living in the shadow of America’s most celebrated classical music talent.

By Hugh Hart  |  January 4, 2024

Interview

Cinematographer

“Maestro” Cinematographer Matthew Libatique Makes Music With the Camera

Spanning four decades of love, art, and loss, the tortured yet deeply moving marriage of American composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein (Bradley Cooper) and Costa Rican actress Felicia Montealegre Bernstein (Carey Mulligan), serves as the crux of Cooper’s sophomore directorial offering. Rather than a pure biopic, Maestro — the visually (and sonically) absorbing musical drama from Netflix — anchors its narrative verve on the couple’s tumultuous marriage and the sacrifices that art demands.  

By Su Fang Tham  |  January 2, 2024

Interview

Editor

“Maestro” Editor Michelle Tesoro on Orchestrating the Epic Bernstein Love Story

To tell the story of composer Leonard Bernstein’s (Bradley Cooper) courtship with Costa Rican-American actress Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein (Carey Mulligan), Cooper, who also directed, and his editor, Michelle Tesoro (The Queen’s Gambit, When They See Us) varied the technical aesthetic throughout Maestro. As the couple first gets to know each other at a party, followed by wooing one another on stage at an empty theater,

By Susannah Edelbaum  |  December 21, 2023
The Official Trailer for Bradley Cooper’s “Maestro” Hits All the Right Notes

The official trailer for Bradley Cooper’s Maestro has arrived, giving us our most in-depth look yet at his look at the life of the legendary conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein (Cooper) and his lifelong relationship with actress and activist Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein (Carey Mulligan). This epic love story, Cooper’s first directorial effort since A Star is Born, is based on a script he co-wrote with Josh Singer.

The trailer centers on both the lasting relationship between Leonard and Felicia,

By The Credits  |  October 25, 2023
The First Teaser for Bradley Cooper’s “Maestro” is Here, and It’s Beautiful

The first teaser for Bradley Cooper’s Maestro has arrived with a swell of beautiful music. This epic love story, Cooper’s first directorial effort since A Star is Born, is based on a script he co-wrote with Josh Singer and is centered on the legendary conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein (Cooper) and his lifelong relationship with actress and activist Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein (Carey Mulligan).

The teaser is focused squarely on the love between the two in a beautiful,

By The Credits  |  August 15, 2023
Bradley Cooper is Unrecognizable as Leonard Bernstein in “Maestro”

Bradley Cooper’s next project might be his most ambitious yet. Imagine being offered the plum role of playing the legendary American conductor Leonard Bernstein by Steven Spielberg, and telling Spielberg you’d take on the role, but you’d also like to write and direct it, too. This is the path Cooper took, and you’ve guessed by now that Spielberg said yes, and while the film’s not due until 2023, we have our first look at Cooper as Bernstein,

By The Credits  |  May 31, 2022