‘Maestro,’ Bradley Cooper’s Directorial Follow-Up to ‘A Star Is Born,’ Will Start Shooting in May

Look what we’ve found: some news about Bradley Cooper‘s directorial follow-up to A Star Is Born. During a conversation with Mahershala Ali as a part of Variety‘s “Actors on Actors” segment, the star revealed that his upcoming film Maestro will finally start filming this May. The Netflix production will mark Cooper’s first directorial effort since the glitzy A Star Is Born remake landed in theaters in 2018.

Along with directing the flick, Cooper will also star in Maestro as esteemed Broadway composer Leonard Bernstein. Carey Mulligan has been attached to play Bernstein’s wife, Felicia Montealegre.

“I wanted to be a conductor since I was a kid,” Cooper told Ali about the new film. “I was obsessed with it, asked Santa Claus for a baton when I was 8. Listening to music, falling in love with it and being able to really know every single moment of a piece, like Tchaikovsky’s ‘Opus 35’ in D major, this violin concerto. I could do it as if I know everything about it without really being able to speak the language, obviously.”

Steven Spielberg was the original director of the Bernstein biographical drama, and he was on the one who recruited Cooper to star in it. Coming off of his high of A Star Is Born at the time he was attached, Cooper was more eager to write and direct movies rather than take on new acting roles.

“I [told Spielberg], ‘I always felt like I could play a conductor, but may I research the material and see if I can write it and direct it? Would you let me do that?’” Cooper said. “Steven has a lot of interests — he’ll just choose one thing and all of the other things will be on hold. I think he knew he wasn’t going to make that movie for a while. He was kind enough to hand it off to me, and that’s what I’ve been doing for the last four and a half years, and we start shooting in May.”

Stay tuned for more updates on Maestro‘s release date, trailers, first looks, and more.