- Bradley Cooper plays legendary conductor Leonard Bernstein in "Maestro."
- The actor says he went to his daughter's graduation in "full makeup" as Bernstein while filming.
Bradley Cooper says he went to his daughter's graduation as Leonard Bernstein while he was filming the Netflix movie "Maestro."
The actor and director's latest project looks at the life and work of the renowned composer, and and his marriage to Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan).
Speaking to Deadline about both starring in and directing the ambitious project, Cooper said that he made sure the shooting schedule lined up so that he could still go to his daughter's school event.
"But we were still shooting. So, I attended her graduation in full makeup as Lenny," said the actor, who shares 6-year-old daughter Lea De Seine with model Irina Shayk.
Cooper added: "So much so that some of the mothers must have thought, 'Who is that guy?' Seriously. I was Lenny. Full Lenny. It was crazy."
The star also addressed the backlash surrounding the prosthetics he wore to enhance his nose while portraying Bernstein.
"I have a very pronounced nose. So we didn't do much to my nose. There wasn't a nose we put on," Cooper said, describing the backlash as "ridiculous."
According to Cooper, the nose he wore was made using minimal prosthetics, but it was necessary to achieve the look.
"If I showed you the nose I wore in the film, you'd see it's basically a silk sheet," he explained. "It wasn't really a nose as such, but I had to do something otherwise it didn't look human. It's all about balance."
"Maestro" follows Bernstein's life and career from 1943 through to the late 1980s.
To play an older Bernstein, Cooper told Deadline that he donned more prosthetics to age him up.
Cooper said: "And then as he ages, the prosthetics come out and then, by the end, when I'm old Lenny, it's the full face, the whole head, the arms, and everything."