A STAR IS BORN
Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper like you’ve never seen or heard them before
Bradley Cooper was warned. Friends discouraged the American Sniper star from choosing A Star Is Born as his directorial debut. Aside from it being one of a handful of takes on the tragic romance, the project had stalled for years in Hollywood. “I had a lot of people tell me, ‘Please don’t do this’ – people I respect and who care about me,” says Cooper, 43, on a hot afternoon in the Hollywood Hills. “I just knew this could be the end of everything if it doesn’t work. It’s like, ‘Who’s this guy making the fourth [version] of this movie? Shut up already.’ But I still could not deny what I felt deep down, and that’s why it was this movie. It sort of ignited something in me.”
Cooper’s Born charts the tumultuous relationship between alcoholic rock star Jackson Maine and burgeoning singer-songwriter Ally, played by pop icon Lady Gaga, 32. As Jackson falls deeper into addiction, Ally blazes a path towards superstardom. Cooper, who also co-wrote the script with Eric Roth and Will Fetters, has reshaped the story into an exhilarating, emotional rock epic with a stirring original score, a career-best performance from the actor, and – yes – a career-redefining role for Gaga, who won an acting Golden Globe for her performance in American Horror Story in 2016. The film, which opens on Oct. 18, has already generated awards talk for its two leads, and the pair’s electricity on and off screen is undeniable.
WHO sits down with Cooper and Gaga to talk about rebooting this classic tale, their friendship, and the day Barbra Streisand came to set.
Did you know each other before you started working on A Star Is Born?
BRADLEY COOPER No. We had a passing-by a couple of years earlier at Saturday Night Live. LADY GAGA We laugh about it when we see pictures of each other where we’re, like, two feet from each other but not talking. COOPER It’s just so funny how life works. It’s like, “So in five years you guys will be inseparably close.”
Gaga, did you have to audition to play Ally?
GAGA I did. I tested for the film. COOPER We shot 10 pages in one day at her house. We were moving like lightning and she completely gave herself to the process. And not everybody can do that – 10 pages in eight hours. GAGA We sat down at the piano at my house and I heard him sing, and I remember I stopped playing. I was like, “Oh my gosh, Bradley, you can sing.” And then we kept going. Before we knew it, we were harmonising. And he filmed us doing
it. We have a tape of the first time we ever sang together. COOPER It’s on my phone. When I look at it now I’m like, “Oh my God. How could she say yes? I’m not that good.”
Did you have immediate chemistry?
COOPER From the moment [we met]. GAGA It’s one of those things. And I think also we’re both from the East Coast. COOPER We both have an Italian upbringing. Our families are very similar. GAGA Before I knew it, I was making him spaghetti and meatballs. It felt right. I was really kind of willing to do anything to show the studio and to show him that I had what it took to play this role. COOPER She didn’t have to show me. We made this sort of decision that first time at her house that we wanted to do the movie together. And we shook hands on it, and then it was just about “OK, here we go,” and started a long journey. She knows everything about me – everything. There is not one thing she doesn’t know, and I believe the same for me.
Gaga, did you put Bradley through rockstar boot camp for him to play Jackson?
GAGA I wouldn’t say that I put him through it – I would say that he did the work. He was in the studio with us all the time and without me a lot of times. [ Born’s music collaborators include producer Mark Ronson, singer Jason Isbell, and Willie Nelson’s son Lukas.] What I wanted for him more than anything was for him to discover that he already was a musician
and that it just had to come out of him. COOPER I grew up loving music. I also always felt like I had, like, six characters in me and one of them is a musician. I loved to sing privately. I thought, “One day I could maybe pull that off.” It really was the confidence she had in me that I would just find it. Bradley, where did Jackson’s voice come from? It’s a raspy almost-growl. COOPER I knew I wanted to lower my speaking voice an octave. So I hired [dialect coach] Tim Monich early on – I mean, like, a year before we shot the movie. He moved to LA and we worked five days a week, four hours a day on exercises and lowering my voice. It was brutal, and it took months and months and months. The person that I used [for inspiration] was Sam Elliott [who plays Jackson’s brother, Bobby] because I didn’t want [Jackson] to be only a country musician and I didn’t want him to have an accent. Sam grew up in California and his mother is from Texas, so it’s kind of this great hybrid voice.
While Bradley had to summon his rock swagger, Gaga, you had to strip that away to perform as someone not used to the spotlight. How did you begin to play that?
GAGA First of all, it was a makeup wipe handed to me by Bradley, to take all the makeup off my face. So we did that. To dye my
hair back to my original colour, which is this sort of mousy brown that Ally has in the film. To be honest, I really felt afraid to take the stage with Jackson Maine because I was also going on with Bradley Cooper. At the time, I was always very aware that I was in the midst of a tremendously talented human being. You shot at actual festivals like Glastonbury, Stagecoach, and Coachella. Gaga, you headlined Coachella while simultaneously filming A Star Is Born. COOPER She shot, headlined, and then shot. GAGA Bradley was like, “How are you going to do this?” I was like, “Oh, don’t worry about it. Ally is going to play Coachella.” When I actually look back at Coachella, it’s more Ally to me. COOPER The truth is, we made this movie for a very small budget considering what it was, and her doing that allowed us to have the week in between Coachella. [The grounds] were still up so we had the run of the entire place, all the stages for five days. It was the first stuff we shot. That was amazing because that was the first time I sang on stage with her. I couldn’t believe how easy it was. GAGA It was so easy. And it was live. I was so excited that he wanted to do all of the music live and record our voices live. It’s my least favourite thing when I’m watching a movie that has music in it when someone starts to sing and they’re lip-syncing. COOPER Stagecoach was shot in eight minutes between Jamey Johnson and Willie Nelson, and Glastonbury was f---ing insane. That was in front of 80,000 people. Kris Kristofferson was kind enough to give us four minutes of his set. I sang, played the guitar solo, and then I said, “Ladies and gentlemen, Kris Kristofferson.” Did he and his A Star Is Born co-star Barbra Streisand ever come to the set? COOPER He came the day that we shot at the Chateau Marmont and he stayed for five hours with his wife. GAGA I just burst into tears when I saw him. Barbra came to the set and she watched some of the film. COOPER She gave us a blessing. Everybody was so excited she was there. We just looked at each other and were like, “Wow. How are we here right now?” There’s a truly stunning moment with Ally singing a beautiful ballad at the Shrine in Los Angeles. Tell me a little about shooting that. GAGA My very, very, very dear friend Sonja died of cancer that day. We were supposed to shoot in, like, 30 minutes, and I left the set because her husband called me and I could hear her in the background and I just got in the car and drove. I missed her by 15 minutes and she died. I literally laid with her, with her husband, and their dog, and his son … When I came back, Bradley was so gentle with me and we got through it. I performed the song. He was like, “You don’t have to do it again. It’s OK.” All I wanted to do was sing. I’ll never forget that day. It was really a special scene, and I’ll always remember that moment. This movie is a love story, but it’s also a powerful portrait of a man struggling with addiction and depression, subjects that are very timely at this moment. What do you hope people take away from it? COOPER I mean, ultimately, it would be wonderful if it could impart some understanding of the human plight. I know that’s why I wanted to tell this story, so I could even help understand it myself. Also, to recognise that trauma is real, and traumatic events that occur especially early in life, if they’re not dealt with and aided, will have ramifications that go on and on and on and on and on. Ally has a speech where she talks about how people in the industry have pushed her to get a nose job. Gaga, have you ever faced that kind of scrutiny in your career? GAGA Oh, yeah. I mean, when I wrote my earliest hits, people were trying to take my songs and give them to other people. I was, like, clutching to them for dear life, thinking, “I finally wrote a hit. I can’t give it away.” I was not the prettiest girl in the room. I was a little weird, and I liked being weird. I didn’t like to be sexual in a way that other pop stars or pop groups were. I was my own thing. It’s heartbreaking, because you feel like, “Why am I not enough?” You’ve also been very honest about your struggles with chronic pain and fibromyalgia. How was it during production? GAGA It was up and down, but you know what? I have an incredible director and friend and lead actor, and I had him by my side the whole time and we did it. Is this the start of a new ongoing creative collaboration, like Tracy and Hepburn? COOPER That would be amazing. GAGA If I’m lucky enough.