20 facts you might not know about 'Maestro'

Producers Fred Berner and Amy Durning approached the family of Leonard Bernstein in 2008 with the hope of making a biopic of the conductor and composer. They secured his life rights and, crucially, his music rights, which began the process of getting a then-untitled biopic to the big screen.

Josh Singer had a resume that included The West Wing when he was hired to write a screenplay for what would become Maestro. His first film, The Fifth Estate, would come out in 2013. After that, his cache as a screenwriter would soar. He has credits on The Post, First Man, and Spotlight. Singer shared the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for that one.

The first director attached to Maestro ? That would be none other than Martin Scorsese. However, as the project started to get serious, Scorsese dropped out in 2017. He wanted to work on The Irishman instead.

What do you do when your movie loses Scorsese? How about getting Steven Spielberg in the mix? Spielberg is the one who first got Bradley Cooper attached, though solely to play Bernstein.

When Spielberg realized he was not up to directing Maestro, he kept on the team as a producer, as did Scorsese. At this point, Cooper made it known he’d like to direct the film. This was in 2018 before A Star is Born had been released. Cooper was able to show Spielberg an early cut of his debut directorial effort, though, and the cinematic icon was satisfied enough that Cooper was attached to star and direct in May 2018. A Star is Born was released that October.

When development on Maestro began, it was a Paramount project. As time went on, things changed. The project would make the move to Netflix in 2020, when the streamer was going full steam ahead at trying to win Oscars, specifically Best Picture (which has yet to happen).

Originally, Jeremy Strong, of Succession fame, was to play John Gruen. However, as this project stretched on, scheduling conflicts arose. Strong dropped out and was replaced by Josh Hamilton in the role of Gruen.

Singer’s long-gestating script now had a director. Cooper likes to craft his projects, though, and he had a passion for Bernstein. He took a pass on the screenplay, and in the end, Maestro is credited to both Cooper and Singer.

Perhaps the definitive Bernstein performance is when he conducted Gustav Mahler’s “Resurrection Symphony” at Ely Cathedral in England. The production filmed that scene in the movie at the actual Ely Cathedral.

The director handpicked several of the Bernstein compositions that made the cut for Maestro and its soundtrack. In the mix, there are arrangements of the London Symphony Chorus conducted by Yannick Nezet-Seguin. Perhaps that was a thank you from Cooper, as Nezet-Seguin was the actor’s conducting coach on Maestro.

One thing that Cooper had trepidations about is that so much footage of Bernstein’s conducting exists, and he was not a conductor by trade. Instead of trying to perfectly capture Bernstein’s style, he focused on mastering the Ely Cathedral performance. That scene was shot live, including the music and conducting, and Cooper spent, by his own account, six years learning to replicate the six minutes and 21 seconds of the performance.

Mulligan, who plays Felicia Montealegre, had the film Fingernails lined up after she finished filming Maestro. Then, perhaps owing to the pandemic or other complications, Mulligan needed to partake in more filming. Because of this, the actress dropped out of Fingernails. On top of that, by this point, she was 12 weeks pregnant.

Hey, if you need somebody to play a little girl and you happen to have a young daughter, why go through the hassles of casting (and fueling the child acting machine)? To play young Jamie Bernstein, Cooper cast his daughter Lea.

The facilitation of Maestro by the Bernstein children went beyond the music rights. Both Cooper and Mulligan wear clothes in the film that originally belonged to Bernstein and Montealegre, respectively.

Oscar-winning makeup artist Kazu Hiro did the makeup for Maestro and helped to make Cooper look more like Bernstein. The first glimpse of the makeup led to a brief, if fervent controversy. Leonard Bernstein, an actual human person who existed, had a large nose, so Cooper’s makeup included a prominent nose. Some claimed this was anti-Semitic, as Bernstein was Jewish. Notably, Bernstein’s children had no issue with it, and the Anti-Defamation League, noting anti-Semitism in the past, simply noted, “This film, which is a biopic, ... is not that.”

The SAG-AFTRA strike really messed with film promotion (and even led to some, like Dune: Part Two, being pushed). While Cooper, as director of Maestro, was allowed by his union to promote the film, as an actor, he chose not to. Cooper did not attend the premiere at the Venice Film Festival, and while he was at the screening at the New York Film Festival, he sat in the crowd and did not partake in the Q&A.

Dual projects in Hollywood are not rare. Sometimes, both will come out, such as Volcano and Dante’s Peak . Occasionally, though, getting out ahead will bring a project to an end. A film project about Bernstein called “The American” was in the works, with Jake Gyllenhaal attached to star and Cary Joji Fukunaga in talks to direct. Once Maestro had the rights to Bernstein’s music, it effectively put an end to “The American.”

Reviews of Maestro were mostly positive, and award nominations (and wins) poured in. Of course, the Academy Award is forever the foremost award bloc. There, Maestro earned seven nominations. Best Cinematography and Best Makeup and Hairstyling are in the mix, but so are some of the big categories. Cooper did quite well, earning a nomination for Best Actor, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Director. In the end, the movie won zero Oscars. Cooper now has five acting nominations with zero wins.

Bernstein won Emmys, Tonys, and a ton of Grammys, but he fell an Oscar short of an EGOT. However, he was nominated once. Because of this fact, Cooper is one of 12 people to be nominated for an Oscar for playing another Oscar nominee. Three, Jason Robards, Cate Blanchett, and Renee Zellweger, have won.

Spielberg, as a producer, received a Best Picture nomination. That marked the 13th time he’s picked up a nomination for that award, which is a record. Cooper didn’t set a record, but he’s in an elite group. He is now one of only four people to direct himself to a Best Actor nomination more than once. The other three are Laurence Olivier, Clint Eastwood, and Warren Beatty.