A STAR IS BORN (2018) | Making A Star Is Born Featurette

[Applause] should we do a sound check is that's good yeah i'm just going to do a thing i'm going to walk up sounds good yeah do it again sound check it again hey uh just wanted to say we're here filming a movie and we came here for you as lucas nelson and promise of the rio my name is bradley cooper we're making a star wars board [Applause] i'm going to walk into this [Music] here we go [Applause] i've always knew that i wanted to direct something and i always wanted to tell a love story because it just feels like something that everybody can relate to a star is born the history of it obviously has been proven to be a timeless tale it's a wonderful journey of making a movie it is a collaborative art form and that's why i love it so much everybody was invested in a way that felt like it was way more than a job and you know i spent the last three years doing this the whole idea of this movie was to be authentic i knew that i had the real deal with lady gaga so she really set the bar if the rest of the movie didn't match her authenticity the story was never going to take off i feel like a star is born chose me from the very beginning when me and bradley first really met at my house i just had all the confidence in the world in him and i just already was in awe of him as an actor i found i met this incredibly open compassionate warm giving person and i knew that the camera was going to love her face her eyes and her whole energy and i thought if i can capture that if i can write a character if eric roth and i and will fetters can write a character that facilitates and utilizes all of her strengths that it could be it could be a home run [Music] in a lot of ways was me i had brown hair and was behind a piano writing songs and you know when she says all i knew i never said is they liked the way that i you know sounded but they didn't like the way that i looked i mean these these are things that happened to me in real life [Music] everybody already knows she has the voice so if i could introduce people to the person also the actor in this character ali campana then i thought it could be a lethal combination i had come to a point where i wasn't going to make the movie unless it was with her that screen test was the moment that i could put on to film the thing that i felt that we had which was this incredible chemistry and that really was the goal even though these characters weren't really even born yet i mean jackson maine didn't even exist when i shot that test but luckily she was great so it wound up being for me selfishly a great sort of test run using it as an opportunity to direct because that actually was the first time i ever directed anything you were just meant to be a director and i just got lucky enough to be the girl in your first film i think that we met at the perfect time like and which is still shocking whoever ever think that you and i that's the pairing right you know but we it really is true that that like you said you always wanted to be an actress and you've done incredible work as an actress but nothing really you never got to bite off like this kind of thing no and and and it's a bit transition oh it's a huge transition that's the thrill that's what i was so happy about for you was that you really got to experience the thrill of acting so jack sent me to pick you up and take you to the gig i can't go to the gig i got to go to work he's very much looking forward to this thank you i really appreciate that but i i gotta go i'm i'm sorry so i can't leave i'll be in my car just right down the street okay you do that okay bye bradley was a tremendous director i mean he really taught me how to just let the lines go let any thoughts or the cerebral nature of act and go and to just be there and and and be in the circumstances of the moment i dyed my hair and took my makeup off and that allowed me to open up to be vulnerable to put you know my pain my despair my insecurities on film we really both met each other at the same point individually in our work and we both needed the same thing from each other in order to jump tracks to this other place the very first thing that we did was go like okay you're a musician and and i'm an actress and we're going to make an exchange yeah and it it was it was really from that first meeting it was kind of yeah it really it's true it just was like a bomb that went off lady gaga really encouraged me to find jackson's voice through just trial and attempt and you have to feel like the minute jackson maine enters the movie that oh there's this presence i drove up to your house and i don't know what gave me the balls to do but i said hey could we sing this song where we went to her piano in the living room and we did like one verse and then you stopped and you said we should record this you started to sing and i was like well you wake up in the morning oh my gosh this man has an incredible voice you sing from that vulnerable guttural place that even some of the most famous singers in the world don't sing from i took piano lessons and i took guitar lessons and voice lessons because you know singing is not easy and especially singing in front of a lot of people so i had to spend you know five days a week for six months trying to learn how to sing watching you become a musician it's just it's been a pleasure it's a source of pride for us it is it is it's it's kind of just incredible i remember thinking you were always a musician yeah it was just something that was untapped in you and i was like oh well all i got to do is tell you to practice perfect right yeah it's a little crooked is that okay uh crooked it's good quick is good sometimes i would get two verses sounding good and then a half of a verse would be off-key and and he said you know you're gonna have to sing thousands of times before you sing in front of a live audience because that's the only way you can do it told my baby [Music] [Music] i had the sound in my head of what i wanted jackson's guitar to sound like and it was heavily influenced by neil young his guitar strumming never floated around the neck it attacked the neck three years ago neal enlisted my band promise of the reel to be his backing band it was the first time in my life my eyes have gone from neil young playing guitar to somebody else on stage and i couldn't take my eyes off of him playing the guitar we were talking about so who are you going to cast as jack's band and it was like who am i going to get no no real musicians and it's going to be promise of the real that's what's going to be there is no jackson maine without lucas nelson i mean period i got those magnatone amps and that 1956 gibson les paul jr and that became jack sound yeah man [Music] you're riding it bro this is the right here [Music] getting out of the plane come on [Music] [Applause] me [Music] i would have like a full day of prep and then at like two in the morning meet these guys at the studio and work till four i remember we wanted to go super country and then we and then we thought well why don't we just rock and roll we had a lot of songs for this film and we only chose the ones that told the story one of the first things that mark said to me okay i know you can write a pop song but what do you absolutely have to write about tell me something boy aren't you tired trying to fill that void we were writing shallow from the point of view of ally yeah i had no idea it was going to become part of the narrative and then you start like singing the opening lines it was like i really did get chills and to hear you sing the lines and you know like you said it was written for just ali to sing and then it completely was flipped on its side when you sing it because now it's like tell me something boy tell me something yeah and it has this it's a very very special duet it becomes part of the reason that they fall in love [Music] there's no point where any lyric is sung that isn't directly related to exactly what their fear is their hope their dream [Music] is music and filmmaking it's collaborative and the more you can allow something to grow and not try to control it but curate it is when you have the best product i think in the end the best filmmakers i've ever worked with are the ones that listen can i just uh have the floor for rehearsal one of the great things i learned from david o'russell is to spend time with your casting and make sure that everybody has an entrance and i just love uh you know capturing certain faces and voices and eyes and i can just keep a camera on all the people that are in this movie that never ceases to be interesting because all of these actors are so incredible i'll never forget when you called me and you were like sam elliot he was kind enough to come to my house and we had dinner and i still remember you walking up the stairs i was like holy there's sam elliott holy and uh and then the minute you're gonna make it up the stairs is he gonna make it and then but like all these people the minute they you lock eyes at them they make you feel at ease i kept hearing that you wanted to have this meeting i'm like you i get emotional about this thing too you know like probably everybody's sitting here yes but it was really an amazing thing to go in your house and have you play a soundtrack for me of you speaking in which it sounded uncannily like me i told you i can't wear those things when i wear them it's just in my head and i need to be here with everybody else the documentary said it's the only way to manage this thing jack and i thought what the you say that in the movie i feel so connected to sam in the way that i knew that i needed jackson to feel connected which was a strong male presence and who i want to admire me and love me that's all jackson wanted from bobby we talked about it coming from his dad too it was wanting yeah he was always wanting but bobby like jackson still never healed that's why he doesn't get out of the truck and hug his brother when i said i was you know when i took your voice you know is you idolized wasn't that any kind of wound like that i don't think it ever completely heals up right you deal with it and you get by with it but it's that's right that's that's a very powerful scene in this film and that was the first take dude i remember all the people that are in this movie to me have incredible features and androids clay is somebody that i've always observed to be a very talented actor i think i've seen every movie he's ever made at that read-through i say to bradley am i allowed to play with this you know and he goes i'm expecting all of you we see aly sitting in a high chair a towel around her bathroom being made up by five different people lorenzo comes in the crowded room how do i look not bad huh who could have been a crooner your old man you know what paul said paul anka told me well i could tell you i had more natural talent than frank one actually it's a direct quote that's right more natural talent than frank that is a direct quote song swells mario lanza live from london 1958 la shitami morori whatever i was doing a play in london and dave chappelle came to see we met backstage and there was something about our dynamic that i just loved i thought he's got to do this movie he's got to play jackson's old friend and he did in such a humorous and and dramatic and soulful way saw you on youtube that video with the girl yeah you made me happy man you look like you that's one of my favorite scenes in the movie and it's such a pivotal point in the film because it's he provides the two roads for jackson to go down we would talk about a scene and he would create an environment that gave me like the courage to actually be vulnerable in a way that comedy wouldn't let me be and on the set it was amazing to watch because i can't even understand like the pressure of not just starring in it you know you know producing directing that was great i was learning so much watching you keep me in a comfortable and vulnerable and raw place where i could give you what you needed and wanted for the character all the stuff you've gone through all the insecurities that's all beautiful food for your work at first i thought he was nuts and i've thought that for a minute the first day i was there he was in the scene with me then he'd run out of the scene next to camera start directing me and run back in the scene and start acting you know there've been times in my life where i thought it was pretty sharp give me a break not compared to him i mean it's like nothing i've ever seen before people often ask you know is it hard to direct yourself i found it to be easier that it's almost like a bonus that you get to be on the field with the other actors because you can make moves within the scene and direct within the scene because you're actually a player and as if you're an athlete on a field if you're a quarterback it was amazing dude like when i wasn't on set doing something i would just like find a nook and just watch you work i would see you frame up you know what i'm saying i'd see you see the scene and i'm like yo this is what it takes and then we come out the first day of shooting were just on the side of the road heading back to l.a we were shooting at a mexican restaurant i was sitting across the table with lady gaga and um i i felt that potentially she was wrapped up maybe in a preconceived idea of how the line should be read you were talking to me and i just kept saying the same line over and over again you were like what's going on you were like pointing across the room and like you were trying to have a conversation with me and i just kept saying the same line i know very well what that feels like so i just wanted her to get out of her head and and move into this place which i knew she already had in droves because we had worked for two months just just her and i prepping our characters together and so it was just about you know finding a way for this energy to come through in front of the camera for real that she was doing it no you were doing it i was there i witnessed all the years i've done this all the different sets i've been on i love the culture of his set i've been able to work with clint eastwood you know learning how one can create an environment and a tone on a set that's how we do it dude now we knew it bro you all right it's gonna be a set that's gonna demand a lot of you but it should hopefully feel utterly safe and that i'm gonna walk off the cliff with you into that place of who knows what's gonna happen he's loose he's not afraid to try something or to go with something different than what he had planned if he likes it but he's very spontaneous i felt very free in order to go to the margins of where the scene could be in order to try to get as many real moments as possible you set the standard we're in this together and there are no walls here and there was no rules except not to fake it perfect amazing i thank god we shot at coachella billy gerber was very smart about he said let's let's get some of the the concert stuff right out of the gate maybe first of all it's great for the crew for energy and it also just sets the tone and we're gonna learn a lot and i learned a tremendous amount about how i wanted to shoot it and everything based on those next three days i love so much your choice as the director to film from the stage so that we could see the audience and that we were always with the performer the idea to shoot subjectively came out of a metallica concert and i was behind the drum kit at yankee stadium and i could see the sweat on the back of laura zulrex's neck while at the same time getting the scope of the crowd and that was the first time i thought well this composition in a film would be incredible because as a viewer i would feel like i'm actually there with the artist and also feeling the the breathtaking uh experience that it must be to be on stage in front of that many people maybe it's time to live the old ways then it's all about composition and camera movement those function as emotional ties to wherever each character is jack's coverage is handled through his descent and her ascent the camera starts to get smoother the lens gets sharper and the colors shift from a subjective perspective of jack to something a little cleaner and eventually into more the white light of sobriety for ally a lot of times in the movie the camera goes right to any time that's tactile in the beginning you know when he's wrapping the thing when she touches his ear when they when he takes the thing off of her eyebrow when their hands part because you always remember the first touch of somebody oh maybe it's time thinking about these two characters you know how did they walk through life that then informed how i was going to shoot both of them and jackson to me is somebody who has lived an internal life being famous he's being looked at all the time so he's kind of avoiding it so we're often shooting the back of his neck or profile as he comes to terms with his life and his past and the trauma that he had as a child the camera slowly leaves him nowhere else to go so by the end of the movie when he's on the bed and he's decided whatever he's decided the camera is right on his face and there's no more hiding there's some goodness yeah mm-hmm i'm not gonna go to europe ali isn't even aware of her power and so the camera's always looking at her right full-on one of my favorite uh compositions is the beginning of the movie where she doesn't even know that she's being watched or the movie is slowly saying no no we we see it even if you don't and then she hangs up the phone she walks out to look in the mirror all of a sudden the bathroom is a stage and the movie is telling you that she's the star i will never forget for as long as i live you coming and being like i know what the beginning of the movie is now as we're shooting the film we were trying desperately to jump on live stages stagecoach was occurring and willie nelson and jamie johnson were kind enough to let us go on we were just poison ready to go waiting and waiting away and we find out we have 10 minutes i had just written this song black eyes i think like a week earlier and i thought god this really feels like a beginning of a movie black eyes yeah that's it that's kind of me as a filmmaker in this moment that's jackson it was checking a lot of boxes that i thought were cool but once we shot it i thought i don't know how i could have a better a more powerful opening than this as a filmmaker he could pivot to moment to moment and as a crew we had to do the same thing rather than the piece of paper that tells you what you're shooting it's like let's be open to the beautiful things that might happen in between and we would do that time and time again thank you thank you so much chris christopherson as luck would have it happened to be playing glastonbury that summer i asked his wife do you think that we could hop on stage right before chris goes on and she said of course anything you want we had four minutes then those flags the hill that goes up the pyramid stage it's very iconic i thought well there's no way i can make a music movie that has any authenticity if glastonbury isn't a part of it it was just me maddie liberty and steve morrow the sound guy that's all that traveled to glastonbury but then i had lars ulrich operating another camera lars albridge like why is lars aldridge operating a camera with bradley cooper lars was already there we had a second camera so i just said to lars uh why don't you throw that camera on your shoulder and let's let's go out there and that's how it happened [Applause] this scene is really hard for my character because she lost her fiance in an accident the last song in the movie uh to me means a lot because it's the song that he wrote for her and then you're watching her sing it i came to set and the stage was completely different than how i had uh imagined it so that was sort of took my breath away and i thought oh my gosh i wish i could i remember that day very unfondly in a way because my very close friend died of cancer that day and i actually left the set we were completely prepared for not to shoot and then i remember i looked at her husband and i said what do i do and he said do what sonya would want you to do she came back and she said you know what my friend would have wanted me to sing so if you could help me today and really think of not just her but how it feels to lose someone think of her husband maybe for me i think that that energy will penetrate this room and i think i'm pretty sure she's not in heaven yet so i think she'll hear us it set her up for an even more emotionally charged performance of a song that's so meaningful and connected to exactly what it just occurred this was not only about ali having lost jack and finding the strength to go perform in tribute to him but also gaga having to to go through those exact same emotions as a human on that day on that on set we watched that character go through the grieving process during the song she provided for all of us how someone can endure with loss and and take art and have it be a healing thing [Music] the real wrap of stephanie emotionally was that last day and and on that day she had to have the scene with sam should discover that jackson's dead play the piano and crash the posters in the hallway so it was a really really trying day and i was happy she actually left before jackson killed himself i i don't even know what to say just don't say anything i relived so much of my life with you in such a small period of time in a new way and there was a morning period you know i was really mourning like when when i knew what you were doing in that last scene like i knew it was happening i also had just performed all those scenes having known that you were already gone and that that last day that we wrapped it was like of of emotion badly i don't really know what to say to you because you took a chance on me even in like a very strange time in my life and you brought me back to life and you made a dream come true for me that i thought was lost i am ali i was that girl that couldn't get the job and you gave me my job man thank you she had an incredible day and there were tears and then i and we're about to shoot the scene i walk into the truck and i open the door and there's roses on the seat that she had left for jackson i was like oh god damn it stephanie this movie if you boil it down is about one thing that we need each other and that we're stronger when we're when we're with each other and holding each other and caring for each other there's something about seeing people fall in love there's something about the ascension of celebrity like this idea that this person can go come from obscurity and and become famous and there's something about mentorship and the loving relationship where one person teaches another person how to become their best self i think that those that those themes would resonate powerfully in a culture like ours we made the movie we set out to make that first day i i love what we created i love i love what we created and i also know that like we created something that was even more it's just extremely powerful [Applause] [Music] as i dive in i'll never meet the ground crash through the surface where they can't hurt us we're far from the shallow now here we go for a star is born bradley cooper spent six months with a dialect coach trying to imitate sam elliott's voice now this was before he even knew elliot was going to be cast as his on-screen brother cooper worked on his character's voice for four hours a day and when ellie had agreed to be in the film cooper responded thank god he said yes because i would have had to rewrite the whole thing six months of work on my voice would have gone down the drain do you like my shirt and get one for 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Keywords: A Star Is Born, Making A Star Is Born, Featurette, A Star Is Born Featurette, making of A Star Is Born, movie extra, making of Documentary, making of featurette, movie featurette, 2018 movie, romance movie, Lady Gaga, Bradley Cooper, Sam Elliott, Andrew Dice Clay, Alec Baldwin, alcoholism, tinnitus, rising star, singer songwriter, singer, FilmIsNow Extra

Id: qkNS-9CIpII

Length: 30min 32sec (1832 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 09 2021