good

Bradley I wanted I wanted to start with you and ask

What you wanted to do for your first

Movie that you directed. You you were you were kind of keen on doing a love story

And and how did you arrive at this one? You know, I always knew I wanted to direct I've always grown up

making movies in my mind and so

Compositionally, there were a lot of things that were occurring. I would start to go to this class where music festival about six years ago

and I just loved the point of view of the stage and

it was just a series of events that occurred and then Clint Eastwood was gonna direct a version of this movie and then that that

didn't happen and

And I thought I was a little young at that point

You know

I was just summit and then I got older I went through American sniper and Elephant Man and and then I said

You know what?

I'm 40. time is the biggest currency now, and I thought you know what, you know

just stop

Saying you're gonna do it and actually do it and I had a point of view about a love story that I wanted to tell

through two musicians. And but it really wasn't until I met Stephanie that it that I knew that okay now I'm ready to

Strap on the oxygen tank go hand-in-hand with her and let's go up the hill. When did he first bring this to you?

I actually performed at a cancer fundraiser for Sean Parker

and I was singing La Vie en Rose that night and

Bradley was in the audience. I almost called you Jackson just now, haha

He was in the audience

and the next day he came over to my house to meet me and

It was really like instantaneous. As soon as I saw his eyes we had this instant connection and you know

We're both from the East Coast were both Italian, you know before I knew it

I was heating up some leftover pasta for him in a pan and we were eating together

And then he wanted to sing together

So I printed out the song he wanted to sing which is called midnight special and I was nervous, of course

I

had never

sat down really with an actor of his caliber before ever and

I started to play and he started to sing and I just stopped playing and I looked over at him and I said oh my

Gosh Bradley your voice! you have a voice you can sing

Oh my gosh. It comes from his gut it comes from the inside of him

you didn't the nectar of his being. you know it's so soulful and

Then he said she would film it?

So he took out his cell phone and he filmed us and we started to sync together. And before I knew it we were

Harmonizing and we were laughing

we were looking at each other and

I just I really truly knew in that moment that he's the only actor in the world that could play a rockstar and

I think it is a very very difficult role to play

If you don't do your homework and you you don't

understand the inner workings of the backstage area and the crew and you know in ears and monitors and and

You know instruments things like that

You're at a deficit

but he

He looked at everything. He wanted to know everything

And he was in the studio all the time with us and we were working on the soundtrack

He wrote music for himself for the soundtrack. I mean I watched him be a musician and

you know, I it's just a testament to him as a you know, consummate professional Bradley was there any

Nervousness? I can't imagine walking into Lady Gaga's house and saying let's sing together

Like was there any nervousness in singing the duets with one of the greatest singers in the world?

well

there should be, but the reason why there wasn't was because she was so present and kind and

Just disarmed me and and the greatest artists I've ever met in my life do that

Very same thing, you know Clint Eastwood

You're around him for two seconds and all of a sudden you feel like he's a guy who lives down the block

Same thing with Robert De Niro same thing with Meryl Streep

It's it there's just something about I don't know if when you've achieved that level of creativity and success.

the confidence as a human being. I'm not sure what it is, but she made me feel so comfortable and

And I knew going in that if we don't sing together, I'm just like an idiot or there's no chemistry

I wouldn't even want to ask her to go on this journey. So but it kind of just happened

Organically, I have to say yeah, like I had this idea in my mind

Maybe we would. I didn't know it would be ten minutes into meeting her.

it kind of happened when I walked in the living room and I saw your white piano and then we were outside and I'm like talking

maybe we should just try it and that's why I said listen

Do you want to just sing this song which she had never heard

Never. Didn't know and we taped it and it was we only sang it once and that was what I filmed

Just on my iPhone on the on the on the right on the piano. Do you still have that video? Sure do

And it was part of what I what I showed to Warner Brothers to get the movie. Oh wow. Yeah.

The audience for this will be interesting because a big part of the audience will know this story

You know they have seen it

it was it's been made three times before with Judy Garland after that Barbra Streisand way before that with with Jane, Janet Gaynor, and

Then other people will be coming and a lot of your audience especially will be coming to this cold

They don't know the story. So I want to ask what is the story of a star is born?

What is the movie about I mean the truth is it's for you to say and it's for everybody all the viewers

there's a lot of different things that we were grappling with and

investigating in this movie. Trauma,

What it is to have somebody at your side somebody who inspires you. what it is to be in a relationship

In an honest way what you know the true commitment, what that entails.

What it means to be in a world where you're successful, where what you do is deemed successful

how does that how does that affect you as a as a human being. All of these things were are things in the movie that

That that we wanted to tell and to investigate

But the truth is it's up. It's up to you now. The basic plot

For anyone who doesn't know is you played Jackson Maine, a legendary rock star who meets a young

beautiful woman who has this incredible raw talent. And you help her in her career and

she

Becomes very famous and he continues on a somewhat self-destructive path. Was there something that spoke to you,

About this story that you wanted to tell?

Oh. You personally what resonated?

All the things I just talked about

the thing. I knew I wasn't going to direct a movie until I had a point of view and

And movies have been healing to me because you identify with them. And the greatest thing is if you're identifying with somebody on a 30-foot

screen that's an incredible magic trick that a storyteller is able to do. As opposed to just

Admiring it. You actually are feeling something and connecting with it. So I wanted to create these very cinematic

Characters and music was a great platform for that.

But tell tell their story in a way that you as the viewer can completely identify with.

Constantly throughout the film, then hopefully at the end. You can either be healed, question it, investigate, grow.

That's what I wanted to do with the film and the the structure of the property itself lent itself to that

Almost every single person has told me they like the way I

Sounded but that they didn't like the way I look. I think you're beautiful.

But you know, it's funny you said that this young woman wants to be a singer, you know.

That isn't really our movie. Our movie is a 31 year old,

musician who hasn't made it.

She's not an ingenue and she sort of relegated herself to singing someone else's song in a drag bar.

A songwriter who's singing someone else's song when we meet her. And

That's very different

And he is somebody who is very successful. His fame is not dwindling. He's just aging as one does like a prizefighter

starting to get tinnitus happens to so many musicians, but he

His fame is not dwindling. He could still tour and make millions of dollars for the rest of his life

So it's definitely a different story in that way

Lady Gaga your character is ally

Tell me what spoke to you about

Ally?

why that character intrigued. you what intrigued me about Ally is that she is nothing like I was

when I started I mean when I

wanted to become a singer and decided that I was going to really hit the pavement and try to make it I

really believed in myself and I was banging down every door that I could and

Dragging my piano around New York City trying to get gigs and you know

Even after my first single came out on a record label, I was playing three shows a night

You know in different states every single day

This is not who she is at all. I don't sing my own songs

Why I just I just don't feel comfortable

I was I was intrigued by her her vulnerability

I was intrigued by the fact that this woman has given up on herself

She's depressed. She does not believe in in

her beauty

she doesn't see herself as beautiful and

She's been you know sort of jaded by her experience in the music industry being told

you know over and over again that she's not good enough. And and I

think people will be

Surprised at your acting ability in this. And the same like you are

Beholding a movie in the most, as if you've done it a million times before in the same way that Bradley, when you've seen it

Is a 'wow' moment at first and then it it

Both of you were seen, when you watch the movie very comfortable doing these sort of new things for both of you

But how much nervousness was there going into it for both of you? I

For me there, there was not nervousness because we really made a contract, you know together as friends when we first

Met and when we decided to do this that you know, he said, you know

you're an actress and I said you're a musician and we shook hands and you know when you have that exchange with Anik with a

Collaborator it makes for a very pure artistic experience

I've said this to him before, you know, I'm saying with a lot of different people

but sometimes you can be singing with someone and you feel like they're singing at you or they're still just

performing for the audience

And they're not singing with you and telling the story and I loved singing with him so much and and we did everything

Live so, you know

You know take after take it was fresh and new and I just I loved his voice

and I loved the way our voices sounded together and

You know, we found love through music

the one thing I you know

I knew the talent I knew the potential but I also knew that it wouldn't really happen

Unless there was a tremendous commitment that was made and the fact that it wasn't lost on me

She is a full life

You know a full career that has a lot of demands and for her to take the time that she took

To prepare and to commit to this project is it was a massive?

Undertaking and also a massive sacrifice in her whole other life that to me

As I said before time is the biggest currency the fact that she dedicated so much of her precious time to this project

is the reason why it is what it is, but that was a you know symptom of

Bradley's passion, you know when you are working with someone who's better than you, you know?

You want to rise to the occasion and I saw him giving it everything he had

you know wanting to know everything about the music industry wanting to know everything about the backstage wanting to know everything about

You know being a musician

I was I was flawed and writing the script and writing music and

directing and acting you know, I saw and had such a

Privileged experience to watch him that I I really I said to myself every day

You better bring it. Maybe you better leave every last drop of blood on the floor of that scene

How did it feel for you Bradley when you were because you did you saying everything live which is

Which is part of the power of the film. There's you're not seeing somebody lip seeing write songs up there

It's no it's essential because the music itself is story

It's not as if we break right you watch this thing together and the songs that you wrote fit. There's no

To the moment. How did it feel for you?

I think it was very early on when you first got up in front of 80,000 people

with Lady gaga to to sing

How did that feel for you to look out at that sea of people and you'd never done anything like that before?

I mean the the gift was yeah

The first time we went on stage was the week the week in between the weekends that Stephanie did

Coachella and

And and the first the first time was digging my grave a song that's on the soundtrack that will didn't wind up in the movie

and

That I really sort of cut my teeth there, which was wonderful

That allowed me then to because then we started to hop on to real stages, you know, just stealing a tour four minutes

But it was because I had that camaraderie on stage and that okay