‘Maestro’ Artisans on Collaborating with Bradley Cooper and How That Snoopy Scene Came Together

The artisans of “Maestro” recalled their experiences working with Bradley Cooper to bring his vision of Leonard Bernstein’s story to life at Variety’s Artisans Screening Series of “Maestro,” moderated by Variety’s senior artisans editor Jazz Tangcay.

“Bradley was already in character holding a cigarette, doing Lenny’s voice while we were having the first pre-production meetings about the script and what we were doing,” production designer Kevin Thompson said.

To maintain the authenticity of the story, re-recording mixer Tom Ozanich said Cooper “wanted Leonard’s music to be a character in the movie.” This meant using the legendary composer’s original recordings for the iconic Ely Cathedral scene.

However, since they were dealing with recordings that were decades old, they faced challenges. “We tried to find original masters and multi-tracks and stuff so that we could be able to get into the parts and be able to take advantage of it in Atmos, but we couldn’t get to any of that,” Ozanich explained.

The decision was made to re-record everything so they could strategically place microphones to pick up everything needed to deliver an Atmos sound.

While Cooper could rely on history for some elements of the script, other components, such as the costume, were not documented and had to be left to the imagination. Costume designer Mark Bridges gave the example of some of Felicia’s (Carey Mulligan) outfits.

“The fact that she was wearing a Chanel suit to go to the doctor’s was written into the script. We don’t know what she wore, but I thought it was a great idea because clothing as armor, she couldn’t possibly get bad news if she’s wearing Chanel,” he said. “You think about a person, how they live their lives, what might be going through their mind, and then use that to give them an outer shell for all the incredible work that Bradley and Carey did for their characters.”

Cooper also had to undergo a physical transformation to portray Leonard Bernstein. Guillermo del Toro was working with Cooper on “Nightmare Alley” when he told Cooper that prosthetic makeup designer Kazu Hiro was “the only one who can do this.”

“Leonard Bernstein was a really big inspiration for me when I was a teenager because I saw his documentary, and he inspired me to do my best to achieve my goal. And I was thinking, someday I want to walk on a film about him,” Hiro said. “That was 37 years ago, and finally this came to me. It was great timing because Bradley had a passion to make a movie about Lenny and I had a passion too, so our paths crossed.”

Hiro said it took about five hours to transform Cooper into the last stages of Leonard’s life: “You can travel from L.A. to New York,” the artist joked. While he was originally intending to do the makeup with a team, Cooper asked if Hiro could do it by himself to avoid having “too much energy floating around” him in the morning.

The panel also discussed how they put together the Thanksgiving scene where there is an argument in the bedroom between Felicia and Leonard — and an appearance from Snoopy. Thompson said Cooper wanted the scene to be done in one long take to avoid cutting out the emotion between the two actors.

“We knew if that frame was going to be there for a long time, people were going to dissect every detail of that frame because you’re used to cutting, and you don’t stare at a room like that for that long generally. He and I together tweaked and painted the details of that scene. We would move a painting a little higher, a little lower. We would be very careful about the pillows on the window seats to tell the story the way he felt we could do most from one angle of a scene,” he said. “That was an example of how intimately he became involved with every department and how there was a constant dialogue going on between him and all the department heads.”

Editor Michelle Tesoro revealed they cut out a shot of the characters walking down the hall in this scene to better set up the moment for the drama that was going to ensue.

“It lent itself so that the music landed after the slippers and into the foyer when he’s like, who left this Snoopy here? Who abandoned Snoopy? And so you’re ready for what is going to happen now,” she said. “Our work really throughout the film, we’re setting up for these dramatic keystone moments to land.”

Watch the video above.