First Images Reveal Bradley Cooper as Leonard Bernstein

Netflix released a first look at director and Academy Award nominee Bradly Cooper‘s second feature film Maestro. The biopic follows the life and love story between the American conductor, composer and humanitarian, Leonard Bernstein (Cooper) and his wife Felicia Montealegre, portrayed in the film by Award nominee Carey Mulligan (The Great Gatsby). The images offer a look at the couple in various stages of their lives.

Originally, a biographical film on the Broadway composer was set to be directed by the renowned Steven Spielberg, and Cooper was set to star in it. However, after Cooper’s directorial debut’s box-office success for the romance drama A Star is Born, Cooper told Variety, he approached Spielberg and said, “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?” If the images are any indication, Cooper’s return to the director’s chair is going to be another success.

The images tease viewers with a glimpse of Cooper and Mulligan completely transformed, transported to the ’40s when the couple first met at a party. Mulligan looks timeless as the Chilean-American actress, Montealegre, seen sitting cross-legged, casually gazing into the camera wielded by Cooper, still dressed in his Bernstein attire. Other images highlight the impressive talent of Maestro’s makeup department, showing an unrecognizable Cooper slouched at a desk, smoking a cigarette in the uncanny likeness of the great composer.

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Bernstein was a Harvard graduate, and the music director of the New York Philharmonic, and the first American-born conductor to lead a major orchestra. He went on to become the first music conductor to share the symphony with a television audience, conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall in 1949. Bernstein was a pioneer of orchestra and was an influential icon of his time, as well as an active humanitarian. He protested the Vietnam War, worked in support of Civil Rights and raised money and awareness for HIV/AIDS, to name a few of his contributions to his time, attracting the attention of names like Spielberg, Cooper and Martin Scorsese (Goodfellas) to his biographical film.

Cooper has been working on the film for “the last four and half years” with writer Josh Singer (The Post). Recently it was announced that Matt Bomer (American Horror Story) has signed on to the project as well as Maya Hawke (Stranger Things) who will be playing Bernstein and Montealegre’s daughter, Jamie Bernstein. Maestro is produced by Spielberg, Scorsese, Kristie Macosko Krieger, Cooper, Fred Berner,and Amy Durning. Not much else is known about the film’s cast, but the photos hint at the romanticism and reverence that Cooper’s direction lends to the biopic.

Filming is currently underway for Maestro, which will be released in 2023. You can read the synopsis and check out new images below:

Maestro will tell the complex love story of Leonard and Felicia, a story that spans over 30 years-from the time they met in 1946 at a party and continuing through two engagements, a 25 year marriage, and three children: Jamie Bernstein, Alexander Bernstein and Nina Bernstein Simmons.

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