Carey Mulligan on How ‘Maestro’ Isn’t a Biopic and Bradley Cooper’s Request They Naked Their Souls to Every Different

Maestro could also be thought-about by most a biopic of Leonard Bernstein‘s life, however star Carey Mulligan disagrees.

“It’s not,” she advised Vogue in her November cowl story. “It’s a film a few marriage — a really difficult marriage.”

The Netflix movie tells the story of Leonard (Bradley Cooper) and Felicia Montealegre’s (Mulligan) love story over the course of 30 years, from the day they met at a celebration in 1946 by way of two engagements, a 25-year marriage and three kids. Cooper pulls triple obligation because the undertaking’s director and co-writer.

“Their connection was profound,” Mulligan stated. “They lit one another up. You may hear it: There are tapes of them buying and selling anecdotes and it’s like they’re dancing.”

The couple had an association that will have appeared unorthodox to some. She accepted his affairs however solely to a sure level. “For her, the betrayal wasn’t intercourse,” the Oscar-winning actress defined of Felicia. “It was when she felt another person intruding into the area she held for him, being the one who understood him, who was crucial.”

Whereas on the floor, Mulligan’s life might resemble Felicia — each actresses married to musicians with three kids — the Promising Younger Lady star famous that it was completely different for Felicia as a result of the whole lot revolved round her husband.

“There was quite a lot of ‘What if?’ together with her character,” she stated. “What if she hadn’t given up appearing? After I listened to tapes of her being interviewed, it appeared like she wasn’t positive how far she’d have gone — that she felt like, possibly she didn’t have it in her to be nice. However then again, she by no means acquired the possibility to search out out.”

Mulligan mirrored on her preparation for the movie, noting it was essentially the most intense prep she’s ever executed for a undertaking. Along with the technical stuff, like Felicia’s accent and bearing, it was important for her and Cooper to faucet into Felicia and Leonard’s connection. The actors went so far as attending a five-day “dream workshop” to make use of their goals to attach their unconscious to the characters’.

“I knew her capability,” Cooper advised the publication forward of the actors strike about Mulligan’s tackle Felicia. “All I requested of her was to please do the prep with me; I stated, ‘Will you go down this highway the place we’re mainly going to reveal our souls to one another?’ And she or he was like, ‘OK, let’s do it, I’m recreation.’”

The She Mentioned actress additionally identified that there are a number of methods to inform Leonard Berstein’s story, and in a model, Felicia might have been a facet character with just one or two scenes all through your complete movie. Maestro isn’t like that. It tells the story of what they created collectively, displaying that the famed conductor actually “wanted her.”

Elsewhere within the cowl story, Mulligan acquired candid about how she chooses the roles she takes on and admitted she’s “terribly unstrategic.”

“It’s actually all concerning the script — and a component the place I don’t know precisely how I’d do it. I feel,” she stated, explaining that’s a part of the rationale why she has no real interest in launching a manufacturing firm as a number of actors of her caliber have. “I’d know an excessive amount of,” she stated. “I actually want for an amazing undertaking to hit me like a comet.”

Maestro hits theaters Nov. 20 and will likely be obtainable to stream on Netflix Dec. 20.