A Star Is Born (2018)

How did the 4th (or maybe 5th) version of ‘A Star is Born’ take almost 20 years to make… and why did it almost star Russell Crowe and Beyoncé?! This week Lizzie and Chris break down Bradley Cooper’s 2018 directorial debut, and discover why Lady Gaga was initially a tough sell. Find out how everyone from Jamie Foxx to Metallica had a hand in this Oscar nominated film’s journey to the screen. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Verizon FiOS celebrates the holiday hostess with the mostess. When the whole family's over, you've got Verizon FiOS Whole Home Wi-Fi. Fast, reliable, 100% fiber internet in every room. So your little nephews can blast video games on full volume. Your daughter can stream football under the dinner table. And grandpa can turn on the same movie for the third time. A full house with full Wi-Fi coverage. So everyone can do their own thing. Together, 100% fiber internet for 100% holiday hosts. Switch to Verizon FiOS today. Whole home Wi-Fi included with all FiOS gig plans. Availability varies.

• 0:32Chris Winterbauer?

  Life can be a lot sometimes. Traffic, taxes, and that dreaded text that just says, "Call me." Why not go where life is good? Escape to Pluto TV. Turn off all your day-to-day problems and turn on the movies and shows you already love. From Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy to Dirty Dancing. From Alias to The X-Files. Channel Surf Live TV or browse the menu to find exactly what you're in the mood for. It's all free, no subscription, no credit card, no catch. The best things on TV are free. So escape to Pluto TV. Stream now. Pay never.

• 1:23Chris Winterbauer?

  Hello, dear listeners, and welcome back to another episode of What Went Wrong, your favorite podcast full stop that just so happens to be about movies and how it is nearly impossible to make them, let alone a good one. And I'm excited to talk about what I think is a pretty good one tonight. As always, I am going to kick it over to my co-host, Lizzie Bassett. Lizzie, how you doing?

• 1:45Lizzie Bassett?

  Well, thank you, Chris. I'm doing murder.

• 1:47Chris Winterbauer?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:48Lizzie Bassett?

  Sorry, I can't even do it.

• 1:50Chris Winterbauer?

  I can't get that low either. And by the way, it's only his speaking voice. When he sings, he goes into normal Bradley Cooper register.

• 1:58Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah, sorry. I was trying to do my best Bradley Cooper as Jackson Maine, and it didn't quite work. That's because we are, of course, talking about the 2018 version of A Star is Born today.

• 2:10Chris Winterbauer?

  A star!

• 2:11Lizzie Bassett?

  A star! I'm also very excited to talk about this because I also think it's a really good movie. And that's it.

• 2:17Chris Winterbauer?

  It's okay. Great. Yeah, that's it. Nothing went wrong. Um, no, I'm, I'm excited. I enjoyed this film. Lizzie, I'm assuming you'd seen it before.

• 2:26Lizzie Bassett?

  Oh, you bet your brother. I saw this in theaters and I've seen it many times since and I love it every time. I do want to mention at the top before we get into this because of the subject matter of this movie. And we're going to talk about the many iterations prior to this version of it. There is going to be mention of suicide and also substance abuse across the episode. So just FYI. I think that's well known about this franchise, but it is there.

• 2:50Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah.

• 2:51Lizzie Bassett?

  This is one of those movies that like, every time I turn it on, I think I'm going to be able to make it through without just like uncontrollable ugly sobs. And it doesn't happen. It's, I can't. I get to the end when Bradley Cooper's spoiler alert, actual dog is sitting outside of his garage. And it's just, I can't do it. It makes me uncontrollably sad. Um, Chris, what, what'd you think upon this watch?

• 3:17Chris Winterbauer?

  So I, I'd only seen it, uh, it's the 2018 version. One time before I saw it in theaters. I enjoyed it. I still enjoyed it upon rewatching it. It does not hit me emotionally very hard. I also rewatched.

• 3:29Lizzie Bassett?

  Cause you have no soul.

• 3:31Chris Winterbauer?

  I guess not. Um, I actually found the end of the 1954 version more tragic and it, it hit me a little harder.

• 3:40Lizzie Bassett?

  Yes, I think it is in some ways.

• 3:42Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah. The James Mason Judy Garland version. I think what's really, there's so many interesting things about this movie. First of all, it's a remarkable directorial debut.

• 3:50Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah, I'll say.

• 3:52Chris Winterbauer?

  But at the same time, I do think it's a movie, I, I've heard it picked on, especially amongst like kind of more film snobby circles. And I think it's an easy movie to pick on because it's a very earnest movie. It, it really, it's almost uncomfortably earnest in, in certain moments. But it's so well acted. I think it gets through those moments.

• 4:09Lizzie Bassett?

  Well, it also has to be like, when you consider what the franchise is, there's no way for this not to be that. It would not work.

• 4:17Chris Winterbauer?

  It, it paints with a very broad brush. It has to, to get through so much story and it's running time. I do think that that's to the detriment of the 20 2018 version, the 1954 version has room to breathe at three hours. I would say

• 4:31Lizzie Bassett?

  I was gonna say at three hours long, yes.

• 4:34Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah, but they're cramming a lot of story and even more romance into the 2018. And it can feel a bit, I think, montage-y at moments as a result. There's this interesting line of criticism I have heard that I don't ultimately agree with, but I do think is interesting, which is kind of what Bradley Cooper's character, Jackson Maine asserts at the beginning of the film. There are many, many talented people and there are very few who have something to say.

• 5:00Chris Winterbauer?

  Almost feels true of him as the director in a sense, because it's hard to feel what his handwriting or perspective is in the movie, I think, in a way, compared to other auteurs right now. Again, I'm not, I don't

• 5:14Lizzie Bassett?

  That's interesting. I totally don't agree.

• 5:17Chris Winterbauer?

  I don't fully agree with it either, but I do think it's an interesting line of criticism that I've heard about the movie.

• 5:22Lizzie Bassett?

  I think there's plenty of valid criticism about this movie. We'll get into some of it a little bit. I think one of the most interesting lines of criticism is like, why did they need to remake this? It's been made so many times, as we're going to get to. And like, what did this add to that? I think it added a lot.

• 5:40Chris Winterbauer?

  I think that's kind of the extension of the argument I was just making.

• 5:44Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah. Well, why do you think Hollywood keeps remaking this movie?

• 5:48Chris Winterbauer?

  I think watching a supernova and then, you know, a star collapse into itself is fascinating. You get a rise story and a fall story in one.

• 6:01Chris Winterbauer?

  There is a kind of beautiful symmetry to where they meet in the middle in both versions. You know, as we watch one person kind of rail against the night and the other person ascend.

• 6:16Chris Winterbauer?

  And I think that in a way, it is comforting to know, and this is gonna sound very grotesque, but it's comforting to know that there will

• 6:30Chris Winterbauer?

  Be room for that next generation to write like the the old generation needs to die for the next generation to come up in a weird way and

• 6:39Lizzie Bassett?

  See, that's so interesting. I think that is every version prior to this.

• 6:43Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah, I agree. This version is very different than that.

• 6:46Lizzie Bassett?

  It is. And I think that's one of the best things that it does with the franchise is that it's not inevitable that he needs to fall in order for her to succeed. I think that this movie, which is going to go against many articles that I read, but I actually think that this movie and this story from the very beginning has really been Hollywood's sort of telling on itself in terms of how weak some of the men in charge are. I think it's a really interesting portrait of male weakness. And I think that is the case from the very beginning, which is sort of surprising, given when this got started. And I know there's a lot to say that the story is very anti feminist and I don't necessarily agree,

• 7:31Lizzie Bassett?

  especially because it seems to have come from a woman, which we will get into. Let's talk about it. Today, we are going to learn how it took 20 years to make this remake of a remake of a remake of a maybe also remake.

• 7:44Chris Winterbauer?

  Kind of also, yeah, exactly.

• 7:45Lizzie Bassett?

  Why it might be the best version yet. I know people are going to fight me on this and I don't care. And how everyone from Clint Eastwood to Lars Ulrich, the drummer from Metallica, had a hand in bringing it to life. As always, here is the basic info. A Star is Born is directed by Bradley Cooper, written by Eric Roth, Bradley Cooper, Will Fetters, and about a bajillion other people who we'll get into a little bit, but I'm not going to list out here. The release date was October 5, 2018. The studios were Warner Brothers and interestingly Live Nation amongst some others. It stars Lady Gaga, Bradley Cooper, Sam Elliott, Anthony Ramos, Andrew Dice Clay, Dave Chappelle, and more. Here's

• 8:26Lizzie Bassett?

  the IMDb logline. A musician helps a young singer find fame as age and alcoholism send his own career into a downward spiral.

• 8:34Chris Winterbauer?

  And tinnitus.

• 8:36Lizzie Bassett?

  And tinnitus. That's right. Which they don't do a ton with after they first introduce it. But I think it's an interesting element, but.

• 8:43Chris Winterbauer?

  I thought they actually did a better job tracking the progression of his tinnitus than they did his alcoholism, just with little moments where he had to lean in and people had to repeat their words to him.

• 8:52Lizzie Bassett?

  That's true.

• 8:53Chris Winterbauer?

  So I actually thought, I thought they handled that fairly well.

• 8:56Lizzie Bassett?

  That is true. There's a great moment when he's backstage with Sam Elliott at Saturday Night Live, which I'd never noticed before. But if you watch it carefully, it's, it's clear he can't actually hear what Sam Elliott is saying. And he's responding based on like what he's guessing he's saying. There are, you're right. I take it back. There are some very smart elements of that in this. So let's briefly walk through the history of A Star is Born, because as we mentioned, this is one of the most retold stories in Hollywood history, and it's a big old mess. So it starts all the way back in the silent film era. The origins are murky, but it allegedly all stems from a story co-written by Hollywood journalist and screenwriter Adela Rogers St. John called The Truth About Hollywood. This is sometime in the late twenties or early thirties, and there are a few real lives that the story

• 9:40Lizzie Bassett?

  appears to draw on. Colleen Moore, a silent film starlet who put her husband, producer, and publicity man John McCormick in charge of her career for a time only for his alcoholism and jealousy to prevent her from moving into the talkies until everyone else had already gotten their shot. He apparently attempted suicide by walking into the ocean. He survived. And he was fired from his job for being absolutely publicly wasted. This one is the most likely source for the story, since Moore was personal friends with Adela Rogers St. John, who wrote the original piece. Barbara Stanwyck is another potential inspiration. She went from chorus line girl to Hollywood superstar while her husband descended further into alcoholism and despair. And then there are the potential Jackson or Norman main

• 10:24Lizzie Bassett?

  prototypes, including John Barrymore, John Gilbert, and silent film actor John Bowers, who very sadly did seem to drown himself in the Pacific Ocean when his career went down the toilet. By the way, we searched high and low for the original story from Adela, but it was absolutely impossible to find. So listeners, if you know where it is, I would love to read it. Please tell me. So in 1932, we get the first onscreen version of the story, though of course it is not called A Star is Born. It's called What Price Hollywood?

• 10:54Chris Winterbauer?

  Mm hmm.

• 10:54Lizzie Bassett?

  Which I would argue is not quite as catchy. This is directed by George Kuakor and produced by David O. Selznick for RKO. And we've talked about both of those guys before, particularly in our Gone with the Wind episode. So go give that a listen if you want to learn more about them. What Price Hollywood is based on the story by Adela Rogers St. John. So we get the really bare bones version here, though it's set in Hollywood, not the music industry. It is not a musical, nor is it really a romance. The main character is not romantically involved with the drunken lead. She falls for a different asshole and there's sort of a different trajectory there. So technically, not the beginning of a Star is Born franchise. However, too many similarities, I think, to not consider this the beginning of the IP.

• 11:39Lizzie Bassett?

  Just four years later, in 1937, we get the first A Star is Born. And can you guess who it's produced by, Chris?

• 11:45Chris Winterbauer?

  Is it O. Selznick again?

• 11:47Lizzie Bassett?

  You betcha. It's David O. Selznick.

• 11:49Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah.

• 11:49Lizzie Bassett?

  Because he's with United Artists now. And he's like, you know what? Let's do it again. Apparently, he even asked George Kuakor to direct, but Kuakor declined because the stories were so similar.

• 12:00Chris Winterbauer?

  And O. Selznick said, let me do some more speed and ask somebody else.

• 12:05Lizzie Bassett?

  He sure did. And William Wellman was like, sure.

• 12:07Chris Winterbauer?

  Let's do it.

• 12:10Lizzie Bassett?

  So he writes and directs instead. This one stars Janet Gaynor and Friedrich March. Contrary to the plot, Gaynor's career was actually in a downturn, which does mirror Judy Garland's as well. And it was this film that revived it. Now, the details of this are also murky, but it seems RKO explored a plagiarism lawsuit against Selznick because they were so similar. However, this is where the template for all of the future films is really set. We get the names Norman Maine, later Jackson Maine in our version, and Esther Blodgett changed to Ally for obvious reasons.

• 12:45Chris Winterbauer?

  A name so bad you couldn't make it up. You didn't make it up. Nobody would choose that name.

• 12:50Lizzie Bassett?

  That's a whole running thing in the Judy Garland one. We get the public embarrassment of our starlet at an awards show and we get the basic story. A struggling actress falls in love with a once successful actor who is struggling with alcohol abuse as her star rises, his falls, eventually to his death. That's the trajectory we see across the whole series, but this is still not a musical.

• 13:10Chris Winterbauer?

  Got it.

• 13:10Lizzie Bassett?

  It was, however, a big financial success. So naturally in 1954, they decide to remake it because why not? Hollywood's never liked original IP.

• 13:20Chris Winterbauer?

  So finally came down from that last bump and he's like, we gotta, we gotta go back to the well.

• 13:25Lizzie Bassett?

  One more time. Now this is a musical starring Judy Garland and James Mason. This one is produced by Warner Brothers. This is, I think, when Warner Brothers gets a hold of the IP. Now I'm going to gloss over this because honestly, a lot went wrong and I think it deserves its own episode. So.

• 13:44Chris Winterbauer?

  Hundred percent. A hundred percent deserves it. So I know a little bit about this one and it deserves its own episode.

• 13:50Lizzie Bassett?

  It's wild. I was not as familiar with the backstory in this until I started researching it and I was just like, okay, I'm going to stop. Um, yeah. So listeners, if you're interested in a dedicated Judy stars born episode, let us know. We will make it happen. But here's the brief background. George Cukor comes back to direct.

• 14:08Chris Winterbauer?

  Yep.

• 14:09Lizzie Bassett?

  Ira Gershwin and Harold Arden write the music. So Chris, you did watch this one and it sounds like you enjoyed it. Very briefly, what was it that you liked about this?

• 14:18Chris Winterbauer?

  There were three things I really liked about this version that were different in the 2018 version. The first is I appreciated that Norman Maine's character was a womanizer and a real cad at the beginning of the movie.

• 14:32Lizzie Bassett?

  He's a mess.

• 14:33Chris Winterbauer?

  He's more of a mess and they allow him to be frankly, kind of more of a, a piece of shit. And I think that that makes for a more interesting turn when he becomes earnestly invested in Esther Blodgett, Judy Garland's career. So I appreciated that as opposed to the 2018 version. I think they do a lot of work. To try to really get you to like Jackson.

• 14:51Lizzie Bassett?

  Yes.

• 14:51Chris Winterbauer?

  Right at the beginning of the movie. That's a just different sensibilities.

• 14:54Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah, he's appalling at the beginning of this.

• 14:57Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah, and I really liked that. And I really liked James Mason as an actor. And I, there's a scene where he's, you know, going to pick up women at a, at a bar and.

• 15:04Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah.

• 15:05Chris Winterbauer?

  And he's like, you know, my last relationship lasted a week, basically. And, you know, who do you, basically, who's, who's around that I can pick up? And there's a funny Pasadena reference that I had to look up because I didn't fully understand it, but it was referring to old money. Anywho, I like that. Second thing, Lady Gaga is remarkable, and I think her acting, we'll get to it, is great in this movie. Oh, my God, I forgot how good Judy Garland was, especially as a singer.

• 15:28Lizzie Bassett?

  She is incredible.

• 15:30Chris Winterbauer?

  Wow. Her voice is technically perfect. I mean, it's remarkable.

• 15:36Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah.

• 15:36Chris Winterbauer?

  Crazy. So that was two. And then the third thing that we mentioned, I, for some reason, the runtime and the pacing, it allowed me to settle in a little. I know it was long, it was three hours, but I, I guess I preferred, there's a romanticism to walking into the ocean that I just found very moving. And with the LA setting and whatnot, I thought that worked really well. So those were the things that I really liked about the 54 version.

• 16:02Lizzie Bassett?

  I agree. I think that this version is incredible. I think Judy Garland is really stunning in it, both as an actress and as a singer. We've talked about her before in our Wizard of Oz episode. If you want to hear that, please go back and listen to it. She had a very, very hard life. By all accounts, she was not well during the filming of this. She'd gotten herself released from her contract with MGM in 1950 and had not made a movie since. She was struggling with substance abuse and a few suicide attempts of her own. She also had some pretty wild weight fluctuations across the film. They had to constantly account for and made continuity a problem. She did lose the Oscar to Grace Kelly for The Country Girl in what's considered one of the biggest snubs ever. And she never really recovered after this.

• 16:46Lizzie Bassett?

  Production was very difficult. Post-production was even worse. We're not going to talk about it, except for one thing. Chris, did you notice something weird about this film?

• 16:53Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah, I'll let you explain it, but you'll see when you watch the film, there are basically scenes missing that are filled in with photo montages. And there's a very specific reason for that. And Lizzie, I'm sure you'll explain why.

• 17:05Lizzie Bassett?

  That is right. There's a lot of missing footage. That's because studio execs cut almost 30 minutes of the film after the premiere without George Cukor's input because they wanted a shorter runtime to sell more screenings. It's something we've talked about in the past. You want to pack as many screenings into each theater as you can. It has been mostly reconstructed, the film has, but unfortunately, that missing footage has been lost forever, it seems. They have the audio. So they kind of cover it. They almost like storyboard it.

• 17:34Chris Winterbauer?

  Exactly.

• 17:34Lizzie Bassett?

  With production stills, which is pretty clever and like it works, but it is unfortunate that that's gone. Even though the film was adored by critics and audiences, it did not make money because it had been so expensive behind the scenes. So fast forward to 1976.

• 17:49Chris Winterbauer?

  Oh, yeah.

• 17:51Lizzie Bassett?

  Here we go.

• 17:52Chris Winterbauer?

  It's my least favorite one of the four.

• 17:54Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah. We finally move into the music industry with the absolutely batshit bonkers Barbara Streisand and Kris Kristofferson version. Uh, yeah, we can just, we can kind of zip along this one.

• 18:06Chris Winterbauer?

  We can do it. Nothing to see here, folks.

• 18:10Lizzie Bassett?

  Again, produced by Warner Brothers. It does win an Oscar for Best Original Song for Evergreen and it's a song. I don't know. Listen, listen, Barbara, Barbara's great. But it's not her best.

• 18:24Chris Winterbauer?

  I, I think it's, if you look at it as like a stepping stone to the 2018 version, right? It, it gets you part of the way there, if that makes sense. I think it's easier to appreciate.

• 18:34Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah, it has a lot of similarities to the 2018 version, including he sees her at a nightclub while looking for a drink after his gig, although this is a connection to previous versions because he always finds her at an after-hours club. He brings her on stage for her big break. After he drives his car off the road and dies, in this version, she performs at his memorial service, singing a song that he wrote for her. Of course, we see that again here. And she does introduce herself with his surname at that memorial, although again, that's something that actually all of the versions did. So I would argue that yes, there are a lot of similarities. I think the biggest thing is that it moves us into the music industry instead of Hollywood. But I think it really is just building off of existing Star is Born franchise tropes and

• 19:15Lizzie Bassett?

  kind of translating them. People do love this version. God bless you. If you, if you like this one, it is something and it did very well at the box office. That's all I'm gonna say about that.

• 19:28Chris Winterbauer?

  And didn't this one also kind of establish, wasn't John Peters a producer on this movie? And I believe that it's kind of what broke him in.

• 19:35Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah, we're gonna get to John Peters.

• 19:37Chris Winterbauer?

  You'll see his name in the credits of the 2018 version as well.

• 19:40Lizzie Bassett?

  Which we will talk about. That caused some not great press for it. Yes. If you're not familiar who John Peters is, he was a very famous Hollywood hairstylist who eventually became a big producer. I believe the film Shampoo was loosely based on him. And he was Barbra Streisand's partner during this time, among many other things. So we've got a consistently commercially successful and sometimes critically successful IP. Chris, what does Hollywood do next?

• 20:07Chris Winterbauer?

  Make it again.

• 20:08Lizzie Bassett?

  That's right. Make it again.

• 20:09Chris Winterbauer?

  But first, put it in development hell.

• 20:11Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah, I was gonna say, we're finally at the Gaga and Cooper version, except we're not, because it has to go through 20 years of development.

• 20:23Chris Winterbauer?

  This podcast is supported by Article. Guys, after my family lost our house in the Eaton Canyon fires, we needed new furniture ASAP for our rental. We needed stuff that would arrive quickly, ideally be pretty stylish and be durable, because we got a couple of young kids, which is why we ordered the Sennow dining table in walnut from Article and it showed up within days at our new rental. And our kids started beating up on it and it still looks great over a year later. Since then, we've added a couch, the Senni sectional, and we have just become bigger fans of Article. Article makes it effortless for you to create a stylish, long-lasting home at truly unbeatable prices. Not only do you not have to wait for stuff to be shipped from warehouses all over the world for weeks and weeks, it arrives

• 21:05Chris Winterbauer?

  quickly and it will last. Again, we have two kids under five. I cannot believe that our dining table and our sectional still look great. Article's offering our listeners $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. To claim, visit article.com/wrong and the discount will be automatically applied at checkout. That's article.com/wrong for $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. This podcast is supported by Monarch. Guys, there's nothing more difficult than paying down debt. It can feel like a true Sisyphean task, like you're pushing that rock up that hill, like you're running up that hill, like you are Kate Bush running up that hill. I don't know if that's technically what that song's about, but we're going to use it as a metaphor here. The point is, debt's a lot easier to tackle when you can see the finish line, and that's where Monarch comes in.

• 21:49Chris Winterbauer?

  Monarch's debt paydown simulator and visualizer shows you the exact date that you're going to be debt-free based on your real-time balances and payments. Plus, you can test out different payment options to see which one's going to fit your schedule best. I love Monarch because it doesn't just tell me what I've spent, it helps me set out goals, map out big purchases, pay down my debt, and figure out how to do these things before it's too late to adjust. So, write your own money story with Monarch. Use code WRONG at monarch.com to get your first year of Monarch Core half off at just $50. That's 50% off your first year at monarch.com with code WRONG.

• 22:28Speaker 03

  The next chapter is here. The Hulu original series, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives: Orange County, is coming to Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ on November 12.

• 22:37Speaker 04

  We've all been shaped by Mormonism in one way or another.

• 22:40Speaker 05

  But there are moral divides that are pushing everyone to opposite directions. I am here to be a good example for the church.

• 22:47Speaker 04

  I think it's a cult.

• 22:48Speaker 05

  We're gonna have a problem.

• 22:49Speaker 03

  Watch the Hulu original series, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives: Orange County, November 12, streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ for bundle subscribers. Terms apply.

• 23:06Lizzie Bassett?

  So, as early as 1999, there are mentions in the trades of a fourth version of A Star is Born that has been germinating. Warner Brothers began developing the film with Carl Franklin, director. At that point, he'd directed One False Move, Devil in a Blue Dress, and One True Thing, amongst some other things. And they had a very specific actor in mind to play the leading role. Chris, do you know who it is? I will tell you. Age-wise, it doesn't make a ton of sense, because he's only about 31 at this point.

• 23:32Chris Winterbauer?

  31. Is this a musical version, or is it a...

• 23:35Lizzie Bassett?

  Yes.

• 23:37Chris Winterbauer?

  Jamie Foxx.

• 23:38Lizzie Bassett?

  He's gonna come in later. It's not him right now.

• 23:40Chris Winterbauer?

  All right, that would have been too early. I don't know. Who?

• 23:42Lizzie Bassett?

  Will Smith.

• 23:43Chris Winterbauer?

  Oh, you know what's funny? I swear to God, I was considering Will Smith. And I was like, but he doesn't sing. He raps.

• 23:50Lizzie Bassett?

  It could have been a rapping Norman Maine. You don't know.

• 23:53Chris Winterbauer?

  I, I agree. That was Chris being prejudicial. I should not have made that assumption.

• 23:58Lizzie Bassett?

  That's right. They're also courting Lauryn Hill to be the lead.

• 24:01Chris Winterbauer?

  Oh.

• 24:01Lizzie Bassett?

  She would have been good.

• 24:02Chris Winterbauer?

  Very good.

• 24:03Lizzie Bassett?

  So Smith eventually passes to play Muhammad Ali in Ali. Probably a good move as that really transitioned him into a more serious actor. And he's very good in that.

• 24:12Chris Winterbauer?

  With Jamie Foxx.

• 24:13Lizzie Bassett?

  Yes. And funny you should mention Mr. Fox because by 2000, we've moved on to Jamie Foxx teaming up with Oliver Stone for A Star is Born.

• 24:23Chris Winterbauer?

  Okay, that sounds like a fun version of the movie.

• 24:26Lizzie Bassett?

  What would this have been like?

• 24:28Chris Winterbauer?

  It's also a conspiracy theory movie about how Hollywood is run by the guys who assassinated JFK.

• 24:34Lizzie Bassett?

  Honestly, I would watch it.

• 24:36Chris Winterbauer?

  Wildly entertaining. Love Oliver Stone.

• 24:38Lizzie Bassett?

  They had just teamed up for Any Given Sunday, which obviously was a big hit.

• 24:41Chris Winterbauer?

  I love Any Given Sunday. So ridiculous.

• 24:44Lizzie Bassett?

  They actually had a finished script for this one. I think they got pretty far.

• 24:47Chris Winterbauer?

  Wow.

• 24:48Lizzie Bassett?

  But no leading lady. So Fox goes after Lauryn Hill again. But this time, she won't even pick up the phone for them, to the point where Fox said he felt like a stalker because he was showing up at her concerts and tracking her moves. At one point, she finally said, quote, "You're making me nervous." So Fox drops it, saying, "I guess she's busy with her children." Leave her alone. Leave her alone. She doesn't want to do this.

• 25:15Chris Winterbauer?

  I love getting that message. It's like, "You're making me nervous." And he's like, "Ah, I guess she's busy with her kids."

• 25:21Chris Winterbauer?

  That's what you draw from it.

• 25:24Lizzie Bassett?

  So he turns to another major R&B hitmaker at the time for the lead role, Aaliyah.

• 25:31Chris Winterbauer?

  Oh, with, uh, Queen of the Damned.

• 25:33Lizzie Bassett?

  That's right. She was filming Queen of the Damned at the time.

• 25:36Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah.

• 25:36Lizzie Bassett?

  She expressed interest in the project and was excited to read the script, but on August 25th, 2001, she tragically died in a plane crash at the age of 22 years old.

• 25:47Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah.

• 25:48Lizzie Bassett?

  This seems to be where Fox and Stone kind of lose interest and drop the project. But Warner Brothers will never give this up. And so sometime around 2002, Will Smith reenters the picture. This time, he's teaming up with director Joel Schumacher, and the two of them are courting Jennifer Lopez for the lead.

• 26:09Chris Winterbauer?

  I like it.

• 26:10Lizzie Bassett?

  They want to base it in the world of Latin music.

• 26:12Chris Winterbauer?

  Fun.

• 26:12Lizzie Bassett?

  I mean, she's great in Selena. According to a 2018 interview with J-Lo, they got pretty serious about this and discussed the script quite a bit, but the project never took off, and they all went their separate ways.

• 26:22Chris Winterbauer?

  Well, she went to Jee Lee.

• 26:26Lizzie Bassett?

  Oops.

• 26:27Chris Winterbauer?

  Sorry. Just saying. Timing lines up.

• 26:30Lizzie Bassett?

  Yep. So next, A Star is Born lays dormant for eight years, like the Ring of Power, lying in wait for Gollum to snatch it up. And this time, our slimy cave dweller is Nick Cassavetes.

• 26:42Chris Winterbauer?

  Wow, okay.

• 26:43Lizzie Bassett?

  Director. Yeah. He just directed John Q. The Notebook. And Alpha Dog.

• 26:49Chris Winterbauer?

  I know. It's always wild to me that a Cassavetes directed The Notebook. Nothing wrong with it. It's just not the combo you would have expected.

• 26:58Lizzie Bassett?

  No. Also, John Q. The Notebook plus Alpha Dog doesn't necessarily equal A Star is Born to me, but I guess it could.

• 27:05Chris Winterbauer?

  Why not?

• 27:06Lizzie Bassett?

  Sure. In January of 2010, it's announced that he is in early talks to join the project, mostly because of how much he liked a draft by writer Will Fetters. So I think this is the first time that we are seeing the earliest iteration of the actual 2018 version we wind up with. And again, this is 2010. So Cassavetes is interested in a leading lady, who apparently had been in discussion before as well, and that is who, Chris? Haven't mentioned her yet, but you did.

• 27:32Chris Winterbauer?

  I mentioned her.

• 27:33Lizzie Bassett?

  You did.

• 27:34Chris Winterbauer?

  Mariah Carey? Beyonce?

• 27:36Lizzie Bassett?

  There we go. The queen be herself.

• 27:37Chris Winterbauer?

  I just want it to be Mariah Carey.

• 27:39Lizzie Bassett?

  It's never Mariah Carey. They've seen glitter.

• 27:44Lizzie Bassett?

  So Alicia Keys and Rihanna are both under consideration too, as are Robert Downey Jr. And Jon Hamm. What is this movie?

• 27:54Chris Winterbauer?

  I actually think Robert Downey Jr., Alicia Keys would have been really interesting.

• 27:59Lizzie Bassett?

  That's true. I could maybe see that.

• 28:00Chris Winterbauer?

  I think Robert Downey Jr. As the quick talking, extremely charming, self-destructive alcoholic. I mean, God, the guy could draw on his own past with substance abuse.

• 28:10Lizzie Bassett?

  That's true.

• 28:11Chris Winterbauer?

  I think that'd be, and I, I think Alicia Keys is extremely magnetic. I think they would be really interesting opposite one another.

• 28:17Lizzie Bassett?

  She is. My understanding is that she kind of withdrew herself from the running because she felt like this was maybe a little too close to some of her own experiences. And so she was just like, nah, I don't, I don't want to do something sort of within the music industry like this.

• 28:32Chris Winterbauer?

  Fair.

• 28:33Lizzie Bassett?

  But by February, Chris, and this is my favorite pairing of the whole episode. Another actor emerged as the frontrunner. I just can't, I just, I was like crying, laughing, trying to imagine what this.

• 28:46Chris Winterbauer?

  I feel bad for whoever this is.

• 28:49Lizzie Bassett?

  Don't. He's fine. It is, of course.

• 28:55Chris Winterbauer?

  Jesus.

• 28:56Lizzie Bassett?

  Sorry.

• 28:59Lizzie Bassett?

  Russell Crowe.

• 29:00Chris Winterbauer?

  Oh my God, yes. This would be, I would love this. I love Russell Crowe. And it would have been so fun.

• 29:08Lizzie Bassett?

  It was gonna be Russell Crowe opposite Beyonce as directed by the director of The Notebook.

• 29:14Chris Winterbauer?

  This sounds great. I, I love it. And give Russell Crowe an Italian accent and a Vespa.

• 29:20Lizzie Bassett?

  Oh.

• 29:20Chris Winterbauer?

  Like this sounds great.

• 29:23Lizzie Bassett?

  Absolutely. This was his turn towards the pre-sexorcist 20 years earlier.

• 29:30Chris Winterbauer?

  I, I think, look, Russell Crowe is an amazing actor.

• 29:35Lizzie Bassett?

  I love him.

• 29:35Chris Winterbauer?

  As we learned, as we learned in Les Miserables, he is not the strongest singer, I think by his own admission. So that makes it a little unusual if it's got the musical angle. And I think what we learned about Beyonce and Austin Powers is she's an incredible singer and she's not the strongest actress.

• 29:50Lizzie Bassett?

  I agree.

• 29:50Chris Winterbauer?

  So I think this would have been a very. Dangerous pairing on screen.

• 29:57Lizzie Bassett?

  I think so too. I, yeah, I mean, listen, Beehive, please don't come after us. I think she's an absolutely incredible performer, musician, businesswoman, everything. I've seen Dreamgirls, I've seen Austin Powers. She's, she's not amazing as an actress and like especially opposite Russell Crowe, it just would have been so weird. That being said, give it to me right now. I want to see it.

• 30:18Chris Winterbauer?

  Exactly. I want to mainline this.

• 30:20Lizzie Bassett?

  Yes. But by January of 2011, Cassavetes has exited stage right and the project has been picked up by a much more massive director and that is because Clint Eastwood has hopped on board the Star is Born train.

• 30:35Chris Winterbauer?

  Nice.

• 30:36Lizzie Bassett?

  Will Fetters has stayed on as the screenwriter and Beyonce has managed to stay on as the star. Now, I, I think Beyonce with a stronger director, maybe, and a stronger lead. Cause obviously she's-

• 30:48Chris Winterbauer?

  You're saying Beyonce with Mr. You get two takes Clint Eastwood is going to be the right fit?

• 30:53Lizzie Bassett?

  All right, maybe not. That's true. That's true.

• 30:57Chris Winterbauer?

  Nope, moving on.

• 30:58Lizzie Bassett?

  Oh, boy. And he is pursuing a whole new actor for the lead role. You gotta get this one, right, Chris? Who do you think this is?

• 31:09Chris Winterbauer?

  I have no context. What?

• 31:11Lizzie Bassett?

  He doesn't date anybody over the age of 25.

• 31:14Chris Winterbauer?

  Leonardo DiCaprio.

• 31:15Lizzie Bassett?

  There you go.

• 31:16Chris Winterbauer?

  Can he sing?

• 31:18Lizzie Bassett?

  I don't know. Probably not. Now, you mentioned this before, but controversial Hollywood producer, John Peters, is set to be one of the producers on this. He was Barbara's boyfriend, like I said, and his involvement in the franchise will come with controversy later on. Also, it seems that it's around this time that Live Nation starts to express interest in being a part of the film as producers, though they don't come fully on board until later too. Around 2011 or 2012, Eastwood approaches Bradley Cooper for the role of the aging rock star.

• 31:48Chris Winterbauer?

  That's a lot earlier than I would have expected.

• 31:52Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah.

• 31:52Chris Winterbauer?

  That's, I guess that's a few years removed from Wedding Crashers and must be post First Hangover?

• 32:00Lizzie Bassett?

  Yes. So, we can breathe a sigh of relief because we've almost made it to our final version. Just kidding, because Bradley Cooper turns it down. He was only 38 at the time and correctly felt that it was, he was too young to pull it off, which I think is right.

• 32:15Chris Winterbauer?

  I agree.

• 32:16Lizzie Bassett?

  By 2012, the project was dead again with Beyonce and Clint Eastwood unable to line up their schedules, according to Beyonce. Producer Bill Gerber blamed it on her being pregnant, saying, quote, "There was a moment where that was the best version of the movie and then all of a sudden Beyonce got pregnant. Do we wait?"

• 32:33Chris Winterbauer?

  And then she decided to have a family. That bitch.

• 32:38Lizzie Bassett?

  Do we wait for Beyonce? I don't know, maybe.

• 32:41Chris Winterbauer?

  What?

• 32:45Lizzie Bassett?

  He does acknowledge that she was amazing about it, saying, quote, "She always understood if we were going to take a different direction and then Clint went off and did another movie." Okay, so was that the problem?

• 32:54Chris Winterbauer?

  No, and we're being uncharitable. It's the-

• 32:56Lizzie Bassett?

  They're both impossible, yeah.

• 32:58Chris Winterbauer?

  Of course, and the other folks involved, I'm sure, are pouring their lives into trying to get this thing made and here you have two people, it's trying to get the planets to align. You know, they have enormous gravitational pulls, so I understand the frustration. I don't mean to belittle their concerns.

• 33:17Lizzie Bassett?

  No, it's just, it's a funny quote. I'm sorry, Bill Gerber, I set you up to fail there.

• 33:21Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah.

• 33:22Lizzie Bassett?

  The movie that Clint left for was likely American Sniper, which of course stars our one true Jackson main, Bradley Cooper. There we go. While working on the film, it seems like Cooper expressed interest in directing, something he had long dreamed of, and discussed reviving A Star is Born as the director himself with Clint. They saw Annie Lennox perform I Put a Spell on You, and this lit a fire under Cooper's butt. He woke up the next day, called Greg Silverman, the head of Warner Brothers at the time, and asked to pitch him a crazy idea, and it was the way that he saw A Star is Born, how he felt the camera moving, everything. So Silverman said, "Okay, go write it." In 2015, Clint Eastwood announced he is officially passing the Star is Born torch to Bradley Cooper, who will make his directorial debut with the film.

• 34:06Lizzie Bassett?

  So, finally, let's get a little background on Bradley Cooper. He was born in 1975 in Abington Township, Pennsylvania. You mentioned the tinnitus. He actually was born with cholesteatoma, a growth in the middle ear that causes deafness and had to have an operation right away. Later, when he began diving, he punctured his eardrum and had to have four to five surgeries between the ages of five and 18 to try to fix it, but he still has a hole in his eardrum.

• 34:36Chris Winterbauer?

  Hmm.

• 34:37Lizzie Bassett?

  He studied English and French in undergrad, made a brief television debut in 1999 on Sex and the City, and then famously attended the Actors Studio at the New School, where he received his MFA. I say famously because there are several clips of Cooper asking questions to actors like Sean Penn and Robert De Niro on YouTube and TikTok.

• 34:53Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah, I've seen the De Niro ones.

• 34:56Lizzie Bassett?

  He makes his film debut in Wet Hot American Summer in 2001.

• 34:59Chris Winterbauer?

  He's very good. He's very funny.

• 35:02Lizzie Bassett?

  And then breaks out even more with the role of Will Tippin on Alias. It's on the second season of Alias, however, that Cooper hits a low point in his career. He was frustrated that his role had been severely diminished between the first and second seasons of the show. He was also struggling with drug and alcohol abuse at the time and spiraled into a depression where he started to think that he wanted to kill himself. He told The Hollywood Reporter that once, quote, "I was at a party and deliberately bashed my head on the concrete floor, like, hey, look how tough I am, and I came up and blood dripped down, and then I did it again. I spent the night at St. Vincent's Hospital with a sock of ice waiting for them to stitch me up." Against the advice of all of his friends, he asked J.J. Abrams to write him off the show, even though he had no other job prospects lined up.

• 35:45Lizzie Bassett?

  Abrams did, and fortunately, by 2004, Cooper, at age 29, got and stayed sober. You mentioned this, but it is Wedding Crashers in 2005 that really puts him on the map, and then 2009's The Hangover that makes him a bona fide star. Around 2012, he starts to take on more dramatic roles in Place Beyond the Pines, and of course, Silver Linings Playbook, for which he was nominated for an Oscar. So now with Clint Eastwood's blessing, Cooper begins working on the script, but he still needs a star. Prior to Lady Gaga entering the picture, he did go back to a familiar well and pitched Beyonce on the project. He got sign off from Greg Silverman to go for her if he made the movie for under $25 million. That feels like just her fee, so I don't know how

• 36:30Chris Winterbauer?

  I was gonna say.

• 36:31Lizzie Bassett?

  that was possibly gonna work.

• 36:33Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah, that's probably why he set that bar at $25 million, basically.

• 36:39Lizzie Bassett?

  There's no way.

• 36:40Chris Winterbauer?

  If we could get Beyonce, or if we could get her to do it for a song, that would be a huge win for the studio. Beyonce, at $25 million, you're going to make money.

• 36:49Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah, but there's no, like, why would she do that?

• 36:51Chris Winterbauer?

  No, I know, of course.

• 36:52Lizzie Bassett?

  She could command so much more than that.

• 36:53Chris Winterbauer?

  Well, and she, her, it doesn't seem like her interest is acting anyway, so there's not much of a carrot there.

• 36:57Lizzie Bassett?

  I don't know about that. I actually think she was invested in this, the idea of making this movie. She was very courteous.

• 37:04Chris Winterbauer?

  I, I guess I'm saying it didn't seem like she had, like, dreams of Oscar glory, and you know what I'm saying, in the way that maybe she did in the music industry.

• 37:11Lizzie Bassett?

  I don't know. Dreamgirls might, I think, I think she had her eye on something.

• 37:14Chris Winterbauer?

  All right, fair.

• 37:15Lizzie Bassett?

  Apparently, she was very courteous. Cooper went to her house to pitch her on it. This is one of my favorite facts in the entire thing. Jay-Z was in the background watching Judge Judy the entire time.

• 37:26Chris Winterbauer?

  Good on you, Jay-Z.

• 37:27Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah. Bradley Cooper was freaking out and said that he had a weird nervous little cough that he couldn't shake the whole time because he's trying to pitch Beyonce on a Star is Born with Judge Judy playing in the background. Despite all of this, it seems like she was again interested, and they developed it for kind of a long time, like, maybe almost a year before it fell through.

• 37:45Chris Winterbauer?

  Wow.

• 37:46Lizzie Bassett?

  Next, he approached Adele, who only texted him back once, to say she was busy.

• 37:51Chris Winterbauer?

  I'm busy.

• 37:52Lizzie Bassett?

  I'm busy. Good for her.

• 37:53Chris Winterbauer?

  New phone, who dis? My Cockney Adele. Apologies, Adele.

• 37:58Lizzie Bassett?

  Finally, in 2016, Cooper attended a benefit concert in Sean Parker's backyard, where he saw one Stephanie Germanotta, aka Lady Gaga, perform, and he knew he had found his alley. Guess what song she sang?

• 38:11Chris Winterbauer?

  Love You and Rose?

• 38:12Lizzie Bassett?

  Yes.

• 38:13Chris Winterbauer?

  Oh, good job, Chris. One guess correct this whole episode.

• 38:16Lizzie Bassett?

  He did it. Let's talk about Lady Gaga.

• 38:26Speaker 00

  Verizon FiOS celebrates the holiday hostess with the mostest. When the whole family's over, you've got Verizon FiOS whole home Wi-Fi. Fast, reliable, 100% fiber internet in every room. So your little nephews can blast video games on full volume. Your daughter can stream football under the dinner table. And grandpa can turn on the same movie for the third time. A full house with full Wi-Fi coverage. So everyone can do their own thing together. 100% fiber internet for 100% holiday hosts. Switch to Verizon FiOS today. All home Wi-Fi included with all FiOS gig plans. Availability varies.

• 38:56Speaker 06

  Some travelers want the charm of an independent hotel. Others want the confidence of a trusted global brand. With Series by Marriott, you get both. Each property is uniquely connected to its destination, delivering local experiences and memorable stays, while being backed by the quality, reliability, and Marriott Bonvoy benefits travelers know and trust. Experience the destination without the compromise. Series by Marriott is part of Marriott Bonvoy. Book direct at marriott.com or on the Marriott Bonvoy app.

• 39:27Speaker 03

  The next chapter is here. The Hulu original series, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives: Orange County, is coming to Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ on November 12.

• 39:36Speaker 04

  We've all been shaped by Mormonism in one way or another.

• 39:39Speaker 05

  But there are moral divides that are pushing everyone to opposite directions. I am here to be a good example for the church.

• 39:46Speaker 04

  I think it's a cult.

• 39:47Speaker 05

  We're gonna have a problem.

• 39:48Speaker 03

  Watch the Hulu original series, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives: Orange County, November 12, streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ for Bumble subscribers. Terms apply.

• 40:06Lizzie Bassett?

  Stephanie Germanato was born in New York City in 1986. She describes herself as an outcast and misfit throughout school, but she was incredibly talented musically from a very young age, starting to study piano at four. In 2003, she gained early admission to NYU's Tisch School for the Arts in CAP 21, which I want to mention is an acting and musical theater program. Remember that. But just two years later withdrew to focus on music full-time.

• 40:31Chris Winterbauer?

  I also started studying piano at four. And I podcast.

• 40:37Lizzie Bassett?

  I'll let Gaga explain this transition into music herself in this interview with SAG-AFTRA.

• 40:43Speaker 06

  I've been thinking a lot about this recently, and I think that because I always wanted to be an actress before I wanted to be a singer, you know, I studied at the Lee Strasberg Institute, I did some Meisner, I did some Adler, I went to Circle in the Square for a little while, you know, I kind of had it in me. And I've, over the years, created characters for myself because I could not get a job as an actress. So I became a musician that acted as well.

• 41:15Chris Winterbauer?

  Makes sense. I mean, her performances are very much a persona.

• 41:20Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah, that is Gaga speaking at a SAG-AFTRA Q and A, by the way. And I play that because, like, she's rattling off some of the best acting training that you can possibly get. So I'll just leave that there.

• 41:33Chris Winterbauer?

  She's exceptional as an actress in the movie. She doesn't feel like an amateur. She does not feel raw in the way that you might expect a musician to feel. She's extremely natural. It's clear they have a good rapport and chemistry as well. But even her scenes with Andrew Dice Clay, who I really like as her father, are really charming. And she, again, just feels like very comfortable and she can hold her own with anybody in the movie.

• 42:02Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah, I agree. I think she's amazing, both as an actor and a singer in this. Unfortunately, the next thing that happens to Stephanie is very upsetting. Sometime around the age of 19, she was raped by a music producer, something that led to a psychotic break and has caused her years of PTSD and physical pain, which led to self-harm and some drug abuse. She has chosen not to ever name this person, so we're not going to do any speculating. I mention it because I do think it's important that both Gaga and Cooper had extensive personal experience with trauma, substance abuse, and depression. Just three years later, in 2008, she became a household name as Lady Gaga with her album, "The Fame," featuring hits like "Poker Face" and "Just Dance." By 2015, she was one of the most successful artists in the world.

• 42:47Lizzie Bassett?

  By 2016, she earned her first Oscar nomination for co-writing the original song from "The Hunting Ground" with Diane Warren. Also in 2016, she won a Golden Globe for her performance on "American Horror Story: Hotel." I'm telling you all of this just to make it very clear that she was not exactly untested as an actress by the time "A Star is Born" came around.

• 43:07Chris Winterbauer?

  She was also bigger than Bradley Cooper in terms of international Q-rating by a mile at this point.

• 43:15Lizzie Bassett?

  Yes. So naturally, the studio took one look at Lady Gaga and said, "I don't know."

• 43:22Chris Winterbauer?

  What's that? What's her name? Lady?

• 43:25Lizzie Bassett?

  They said, "We'll see. Do a screen test." And not just a screen test for, at that point, six-time Grammy-winning artist Gaga, but a screen test for her and Academy Award-nominated actor Bradley Cooper. So, Chris, how unusual is that for people of their stature?

• 43:43Lizzie Bassett?

  And this is not a chemistry. This is like to get it greenlit.

• 43:47Chris Winterbauer?

  "I don't know," is the short answer. I've never been involved with a project of this scale, obviously. Normally, what I've heard of is that if they had a number of actresses or performers, like they were down to three, and they were like, "Well, let's get Cooper on screen with all three, and let's see how they do." But if it's more, if they're really just saying, "Well, we need to see her chops."

• 44:05Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah.

• 44:06Chris Winterbauer?

  That seems more unusual. And I guess the question would be, would they have done the same thing with Beyoncé? And we don't know the answer to that. It doesn't seem likely.

• 44:14Lizzie Bassett?

  Oh, I don't think so. I think they were fully on board for her. They were fully on board to sign her on. And I'm...

• 44:19Chris Winterbauer?

  Which is interesting, because as you mentioned, Gaga definitely has more experience, although I guess she has a technically thinner on-screen resume in the sense that if she just had "American Horror Story," there was less footage for them to see. And that's also such a heightened, campy, stylistic show.

• 44:35Lizzie Bassett?

  Sure. And all of her theatrical performances are also very heightened, very campy. So that's a good point. But Bradley Cooper did not initially want to do this, because this felt like a bit of a slap in the face.

• 44:46Chris Winterbauer?

  She's bigger than him, and I think he's probably very smart about that and realizes, like, this is a get if we can get her.

• 44:53Lizzie Bassett?

  Also, Clint Eastwood was not sure that Gaga was gonna be right for the role. And this is something I don't understand throughout this whole thing. So many people were like, we're not sure she makes sense. And I don't get it, cuz like, I remember when they announced this, and hearing that she was the lead in this was the most appealing part of going to go see this movie.

• 45:12Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah, I'm trying to think of a reason other than a lot of the reasons that they write into the film that are actually so compelling. When she discusses her nose, the way she looks. She's also, I know, I guess, what, she's technically a mezzo-soprano, but she has a huskier, I would argue, like, speaking voice. She's, does she have, really have like a Long Island, like, kind of accent?

• 45:35Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah, I think so. She's, I mean, she's an Italian-American woman from Manhattan.

• 45:39Chris Winterbauer?

  Exactly, she feels a little rough around the edges in a way that works so perfectly in the movie, but maybe the studio thought, oh, well, she's not really polished, you know? How is she gonna appeal on screen? I don't know.

• 45:51Lizzie Bassett?

  I don't know either. I think perhaps part of it is that she had made a career out of, you know, not quite looking like herself, which was intentional, because as she's spoken about a lot, you know, she had a hard time with people giving her shit for her looks, even though she is beautiful.

• 46:07Chris Winterbauer?

  I didn't really know what she looked like until I saw this movie.

• 46:10Lizzie Bassett?

  A lot of people have said that. And I get it, but at the same time, could you really not be willing to see beyond that or underneath it to give her a chance to do something else? But they did, so that's good. Eventually Bradley Cooper decides to take it in stride and treat it as his first chance to really direct. So he writes 10 pages of dialogue, calls up Lady Gaga, and they agree to shoot the screen test at her house. They also very casually call upon Janusz Kaminski to shoot it. He had worked with her on her Alejandro video, great video. He's only Steven Spielberg's DP since Schindler's List, so no big deal. So much of what you see in this movie is the two of them calling in massive, massive favors. You can watch some of the footage from the screen test online. It looks gorgeous.

• 46:54Lizzie Bassett?

  Cooper didn't really have the character of Jackson Maine created at this point, and you can see from the footage, he looks very clean-cut, not so leathery, and he has a little earring, which he swiftly realized was a mistake.

• 47:09Lizzie Bassett?

  Now, much has been made of Bradley Cooper wiping off Gaga's makeup at the screen test. Here's how the LA Times describes it. She walked downstairs, and there he was staring at her. He stepped toward her, examined her face, concealer, mascara, rouge. "Take it off," Bradley Cooper told Lady Gaga. She noticed something in his hand. It was a makeup wipe. With it, he er- Hold on.

• 47:38Chris Winterbauer?

  I thought he was gonna have something else in his hand, the way you're talking.

• 47:40Lizzie Bassett?

  Hold on. This is my audition for Smutty Audiobooks.

• 47:45Chris Winterbauer?

  Great.

• 47:46Lizzie Bassett?

  With it, he erased the colors from her forehead down to her chin. But he left her neck. Oh, God. Left a real weird line at her chin. This journalist is an incredible fanfic writer. So, in reality, the scene he had written featured Ally just waking up in bed, and Cooper correctly assumed that she would not have slept in her makeup. I just want to say thank you, Bradley Cooper. That's one of my least favorite things that I see in movies, is when women wake up fully made up. You don't do that. You would have fucked up skin if you did that. So, when she showed up fully made up, he realized it wasn't gonna read right, and he asked if he could wipe the makeup off, because she wouldn't have gone to bed with it.

• 48:26Chris Winterbauer?

  Which, of course, mirrors a famous scene from the 1954 version where Norman Maine, "Not so sweetly."

• 48:34Lizzie Bassett?

  No. Smears cold cream all over her face, yeah.

• 48:37Chris Winterbauer?

  And basically it says, "You look like a clown, honey," as he rubs the makeup off of Judy Garland's face.

• 48:42Lizzie Bassett?

  "You stayed in the chair about an hour too long."

• 48:44Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah. It's a very funny scene. I really liked it, but yeah, it's not quite as romantic.

• 48:50Lizzie Bassett?

  I do honestly think if he hadn't done this, the studio might not have gone for it. I know that sounds dumb, but like, to what we were just talking about, she doesn't look like Lady Gaga. She is wearing nothing. She has no makeup on. I think that was really important, and I think he knew that. This also feels like sort of the beginning of this romanticization of the two of them that we see throughout the rest of the press tour.

• 49:16Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah, I remember their performance at the Oscars, right? Where it was.

• 49:20Lizzie Bassett?

  Of course, they gotta Googleize at each other. It's fine.

• 49:23Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah.

• 49:23Lizzie Bassett?

  But again, this moment, not quite as sassy as it was portrayed in this article.

• 49:30Chris Winterbauer?

  I think that's just how all women look at Bradley Cooper. I was, my wife was watching A Star is Born. I was like, we need to turn this off. This is, uh, this is not fun.

• 49:37Lizzie Bassett?

  He's the only Jackson Maine who is actually attractive.

• 49:40Chris Winterbauer?

  He's very attractive.

• 49:41Lizzie Bassett?

  So the screen test does the trick and Warner Brothers greenlights the film. It also does the trick for Gaga, who realized how badly she wanted the part after this experience. And part of that may have been realizing that Cooper actually could sing. Here she is talking about that moment on the Graham Norton Show.

• 49:56Speaker 05

  And then he wanted to sing with me, a song by Creedence Clearwater Revival, Midnight Special. So I was playing it on the piano and he started to sing and I was like, oh my gosh, Bradley, your voice. I was blown away by him. I mean, he just, he sings from his soul. He sings from his gut. And when he sings, he's a storyteller and I was just so moved by his passion, you know, for, for, for music and for this film. And quite frankly, it was him that had to convince other people to have me in the movie. Not anyone trying to convince me. I mean, he really fought for me.

• 50:33Chris Winterbauer?

  Quite a compliment.

• 50:34Lizzie Bassett?

  This video of them singing Midnight Special was a big part of what got the film fully greenlit, along with the screen test. So in August of 2016, she's announced as the lead. Now, she wasn't the only actor that Cooper had his heart set on from the beginning. He had always had Sam Elliott in mind for the role of his older brother, Bobby. So much so that he actually based Jackson Maine's voice on Sam Elliott's natural speaking voice and had been working with a vocal coach on it for months. To get Sam Elliott on board, Cooper played him a tape of himself doing Sam Elliott's voice. It was an interview Elliott had given at Sundance a few years earlier, but again, it was Cooper doing all the dialogue. Fortunately, this didn't creep Sam Elliott out and he signed on.

• 51:14Chris Winterbauer?

  I bet you he was just like, goddamn, sounds just like me. You're a good man. I'll do your picture. All right.

• 51:20Lizzie Bassett?

  Andrew Dice Clay was cast as Ally's father after a chance encounter with Bradley Cooper at the Troubadour. Apparently Dice Clay said, "By the way, you were good, an American sniper."

• 51:29Chris Winterbauer?

  It was good, those snipes. Those are good snipes. You did.

• 51:32Lizzie Bassett?

  His agent sent an email to Todd Phillips, also a producer on this film, saying that Dice was "a weirdly good actor," and that was enough to get him a meeting and he got the part.

• 51:40Chris Winterbauer?

  He is a weirdly good actor. He's very natural. I liked him.

• 51:44Lizzie Bassett?

  Hamilton star Anthony Ramos was cast as Ally's best friend Ramon. I think he's great in this. I know it's a small part.

• 51:49Chris Winterbauer?

  He's always, he's always super fun.

• 51:51Lizzie Bassett?

  Dave Chappelle apparently took quite a bit of convincing to take the part. He had met Bradley Cooper briefly in London, but was surprised when Cooper showed up unannounced to Chappelle's annual barn party in Ohio.

• 52:02Chris Winterbauer?

  Mm-hmm.

• 52:03Lizzie Bassett?

  Cooper then called him every two days after that to get him on board, and Chappelle said that he agreed mostly to get Bradley Cooper to stop calling him. It's the old Jamie Foxx to Lauryn Hill tactic.

• 52:12Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah, and I will not do my Dave Chappelle impression right now, but...

• 52:17Lizzie Bassett?

  We'll hear from him a little later. He also said Cooper sent him the script and he never read it because he, quote, "didn't know the shit was gonna be good." I love this.

• 52:27Chris Winterbauer?

  That checks out.

• 52:28Lizzie Bassett?

  The running thing with Dave Chappelle throughout the entire press story is he actually had never seen the movie, I think, until the TIFF premiere. And afterwards, he was like, "Wait a minute. This is the best thing I've ever been in."

• 52:38Chris Winterbauer?

  I was seeing this?

• 52:39Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah, he's very surprised. It was time to polish the script that Cooper and Will Fetterer had been writing. Now, I had a hard time finding exactly why the studio wanted another writer brought on. The best I can tell is they thought that it needed a general polish. And it seems like Cooper did agree. That being said, I think the rewrite that happens may have been pretty substantial, given the actual co-writing credit that the writer got. So they bring on veteran screenwriter Eric Roth. He's written Forrest Gump, Munich, The Insider, Dune Part One, Killers of the Flower Moon.

• 53:11Chris Winterbauer?

  If I were to guess, the script was too long.

• 53:15Lizzie Bassett?

  That would make sense.

• 53:16Chris Winterbauer?

  And they brought Eric Roth in because he has, across his career, handled very unwieldy narratives. Every movie you just mentioned, two-plus hours.

• 53:26Lizzie Bassett?

  That's true.

• 53:26Chris Winterbauer?

  Covering massive amounts of time. Forrest Gump, for example. And I wonder if it was, "Hey, come in here. Let's get the page count down. Let's streamline some of these sequences. How can we keep the pacing up?" You know what I mean? Without hitting a three-hour movie.

• 53:42Lizzie Bassett?

  That does make sense. In addition to being an excellent screenwriter, he's also a self-proclaimed curmudgeon who does not like to visit set, uses a now-defunct screenwriting software called Movie Master that's completely incompatible with email, and only has so many pages of memory, he says. And he had no problem doling out some pretty harsh criticism to Cooper. They had their share of prickly moments throughout, but Roth says that's just a part of the process. He's also 73 years old, and he had eight weeks to do this rewrite. That being said, it sounds like he and Cooper did find a rhythm. Evidently, neither of them sleep very much, so they just stayed up all night for eight weeks texting each other ideas, and they wound up with something that they were happy with. Also, Gaga asked him what characters she should look for inspiration in, and he pointed her

• 54:25Lizzie Bassett?

  to Cher in Moonstruck, which I think comes through.

• 54:28Chris Winterbauer?

  Oh, I love Moonstruck.

• 54:31Lizzie Bassett?

  One of my favorite movies of all time.

• 54:33Chris Winterbauer?

  It's a great movie.

• 54:34Lizzie Bassett?

  Some very due credit to Bradley Cooper here. It sounds like he was really the driving force behind making everything so conversational in this movie. Some of the dialogue is obviously improvised, but a lot is written very naturally. It was also his idea to have her sing the prelude to Somewhere Over the Rainbow at the top of the film as an ode to Judy.

• 54:53Chris Winterbauer?

  Mm-hmm.

• 54:54Lizzie Bassett?

  But of course, Chris, this is a musical, so the script wasn't the only thing they needed to write. They gotta write some songs. So Cooper and Gaga looped in the best of the best. The most major player on the soundtrack outside of Gaga herself is probably Lucas Nelson. If you don't know, he is Willie Nelson's son. He has his own band, The Promise of the Real. Cooper saw him at Desert Trip and immediately wanted him on board. He actually played Lucas Nelson, the recording of himself and Gaga singing Midnight Special, which is what got Nelson on board. They ended up working together on the music for over a year before filming. He also worked together with Lady Gaga very well, to the point where she sang on a few tracks on his album as well. Nelson, you will notice, appears on camera in the film. Did you know this, Chris?

• 55:37Chris Winterbauer?

  No, I noticed a different member of the crew during a specific scene. Maddy Libetique, the cinematographer, plays the photographer

• 55:45Lizzie Bassett?

  Oh.

• 55:46Chris Winterbauer?

  when she's getting her headshots done.

• 55:47Lizzie Bassett?

  I wasn't gonna mention it, but what a lovely cameo. No, so Lucas Nelson is the guitarist in Jackson Maine's band.

• 55:55Chris Winterbauer?

  Oh, very cool.

• 55:56Lizzie Bassett?

  And his entire band is The Promise of the Real. It is Lucas Nelson's band.

• 56:02Chris Winterbauer?

  I had no idea.

• 56:03Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah. So even though Bradley Cooper did learn how to play guitar pretty damn well prior to the film, the guitar you're hearing is not him, it is Lucas Nelson playing. Out of 18 songs on the soundtrack, Gaga's credited as a writer or co-writer on 13 of them. Cooper co-wrote three. Lucas Nelson co-wrote almost all the songs on the soundtrack with the notable exception of "Shallow" and a few others. Now, one of the only songs with only one credited writer is "Maybe It's Time," the song that Jackson sings in the drag bar and then again later onstage that becomes kind of like one of his main staples.

• 56:36Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah, "Maybe It's Time" to let the old ways die.

• 56:38Lizzie Bassett?

  Very pretty song. It's written by Jason Isbell, who's one of my favorite musicians of all time. It sounds very much like a Jason Isbell song.

• 56:45Chris Winterbauer?

  I thought it might be a real song. When I, it, it's probably, it feels like maybe the most fully baked, if that makes sense, of, of all the songs in the soundtrack. And the, and the, all the songs are great. Don't get me wrong.

• 56:56Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah. So Isbell was contacted by his producer, Dave Cobb, who was working with Cooper on the movie. And Jason Isbell's initial response was, quote, "No, Dave, I don't have time for that shit."

• 57:07Chris Winterbauer?

  And he went back to hanging out with Dave Chappelle.

• 57:10Lizzie Bassett?

  But his wife was like, "You're an idiot. Write this song for this movie." So he very begrudgingly wrote "Maybe It's Time" and sent it off to Cooper. Cooper sent back a demo to Isbell, and Isbell was scared to listen because he figured Bradley Cooper must suck at singing. But when he finally listened, he was very impressed, and he told Cooper so. I'll let Jason Isbell explain how this went down.

• 57:31Speaker 06

  He's a good-looking fella, you know. Normally, if you're that, if you're that handsome, you don't really have to learn how to sing. But he went through the process of learning how to sing, and he sent me a recording of this. Then I didn't listen to it because I thought, well, man, if this sucks, I'm not, I don't know if I could call him and be like, "Yeah, I'm sorry, Bradley. This sucks. I don't want your money. Your voice sounds like ass. Can't handle it." But, uh, so I didn't, I didn't listen to it. I waited for a few hours. I didn't know that he actually cared about my opinion until much later. He was doing an interview when the movie premiered, and he said he was sitting there staring at his phone for like five

• 58:15Chris Winterbauer?

  Five hours, just sweating his ass off. Thinking, I don't know if he's gonna let me use the song. He might not like my voice, but luckily he did a good job. It's gotta be something he's bad at.

• 58:28Chris Winterbauer?

  I like Jason Esbel, that was very funny.

• 58:30Lizzie Bassett?

  He's great. Previous Gaga collaborators Mark Ronson, DJ White Shadow, and Hillary Lindsay were also brought on to write. Ronson, of course, co-wrote Shallow, along with some others.

• 58:45Speaker 07

  Hey, this is Penn and Kim Holderness from Laugh Lines. Some travelers want the charm of an independent hotel. Others want the confidence of a trusted global brand. With Series by Marriott, you get both. Each property is uniquely connected to its destination, delivering local experiences and memorable stays while being backed by the quality, reliability, and Marriott Bonvoy benefits that travelers know and trust. Experience the destination without the compromise. Series by Marriott is part of Marriott Bonvoy. Book direct at Marriott.com or on the Marriott Bonvoy app.

• 59:18Speaker 00

  Verizon Fios celebrates the holiday hostess with the mostess. When the whole family's over, you've got Verizon Fios Whole Home Wi-Fi. Fast, reliable, 100% fiber internet in every room. So your little nephews can blast video games on full volume. Your daughter can stream football under the dinner table. And grandpa can turn on the same movie for the third time. A full house with full Wi-Fi coverage. So everyone can do their own thing, together. 100% fiber internet for 100% holiday hosts. Switch to Verizon Fios today. All home Wi-Fi included with all Fios gig plans. Availability varies.

• 59:49Speaker 03

  The next chapter is here. The Hulu original series, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives: Orange County, is coming to Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ on November 12.

• 59:57Speaker 04

  We've all been shaped by Mormonism in one way or another. But there are moral divides that are pushing everyone to opposite directions.

• 1:00:05Speaker 06

  I am here to be a good example for the church. I think it's a cult.

• 1:00:09Speaker 03

  We're gonna have a problem. Watch the Hulu original series, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives: Orange County, November 12, streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ for bundle subscribers. Terms apply.

• 1:00:26Lizzie Bassett?

  So in April of 2017, principal photography begins. Roth, who again famously hated being on set, seems to have broken his rule for this and kept writing through production. It did take Lady Gaga a little bit to loosen up. She is such a hard worker and she showed up to set with all of her lines completely memorized. So on the first day of shooting, Cooper immediately went off book to try and get her to loosen up, and she was so confused that she just started repeating her line back to him over and over again, and he asked her if she was okay. And she burst into tears.

• 1:00:56Chris Winterbauer?

  Oh.

• 1:00:57Lizzie Bassett?

  But she got over it very quickly, and he said that her learning curve just from day one to day two was absolutely crazy. You mentioned this, but he brought on legendary cinematographer Matthew Libatique on a recommendation from Jennifer Lawrence. He's probably best known for being Darren Aronofsky's go-to cinematographer on everything from Requiem for a Dream to Black Swan. Also has done a ton of music videos, so he makes a lot of sense for this. Early on, Cooper discussed the way that he saw the film being shot, all from the stage and from the performer's perspective. He got the idea from a Metallica concert where he was behind Lars Ulrich's drum kit, seeing the sweat drip off of him and realizing how crazy it was to be really on the stage with this level of performer.

• 1:01:37Chris Winterbauer?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:01:38Lizzie Bassett?

  Libatique and Cooper also turned to iconic concert films like The Last Waltz and stopped making sense for inspiration on how to shoot the scenes. Chris, what do you think about the cinematography in this movie?

• 1:01:47Chris Winterbauer?

  I think it's beautiful. I think it's very naturalistic. I think at first, it almost feels a little disorienting because it's anamorphic, super widescreen in like the first shots, and you're kind of wheeling around, you know, the stage with them. But then what you realize, or what I realized, is that, oh, we're drunk like him. And I think that's what the cinematography does so well in the movie, is that it really grounds you in the perspectives of these two characters and in their worlds. And it feels very naturalistic in the same way that I think the performances do, and Lizzie, as you mentioned, the dialogue does. So I think it works incredibly well across the movie.

• 1:02:26Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah, I think it's one of the best parts of this movie. I think the choice to film all of the music and concert scenes exclusively from the stage, never from the audience's perspective, is really smart. And it's something that we haven't really seen in this kind of film before, I don't think. Speaking of the concert scenes, they were one of the most challenging aspects to film. Not only are they singing live the whole way through, which Lady Gaga insisted on, several of the scenes were shot at real festivals. The opening scene-

• 1:02:57Chris Winterbauer?

  I was wondering.

• 1:02:58Lizzie Bassett?

  This is crazy. So the opening scene with Jackson Maine, you mentioned this, where it's sort of reeling, it's very fast. There is a reason for that. It's because it was shot at Stagecoach in the eight minutes between Jamie Johnson and Willie Nelson's sets. That's it.

• 1:03:13Chris Winterbauer?

  Wow.

• 1:03:14Lizzie Bassett?

  Producer Bill Gerber called up Willie Nelson's manager, and apparently Nelson said, "Our stage is your stage." Probably helped that his son was playing in the band.

• 1:03:22Chris Winterbauer?

  I was gonna say, hey, we got your kid a job. You wanna help us out?

• 1:03:27Lizzie Bassett?

  So they also shot at Glastonbury, right before, of all people, Kris Kristofferson's set. This one is nuts, so much so that Matty Le Batteque turned to an unusual camera operator. The night before they were gonna go on, Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, he's back, offered himself as a camera operator if they needed him. And Le Batteque was like, "What? No. Why would I do that?" But the day of, they learned that they didn't have 10 minutes like they thought. They had three minutes. So he was like, "Lars, you're on."

• 1:03:58Chris Winterbauer?

  Here you go, buddy.

• 1:03:59Lizzie Bassett?

  You're gonna take this camera, and you're gonna come on after me. So you are seeing the work of camera operator Lars Ulrich in that scene.

• 1:04:07Chris Winterbauer?

  Wow.

• 1:04:08Lizzie Bassett?

  Gaga was headlining Coachella that year, so they used the days between her sets to capture more. I believe this is "Always Remember Us This Way" and some other moments as well. This is not a real Coachella audience, those are extras. I also don't know this, but I think in those massive, massive Coachella scenes, my guess is that a lot of the crowd was added in post, because I don't think you would call in that many extras.

• 1:04:29Chris Winterbauer?

  I would assume so.

• 1:04:31Lizzie Bassett?

  They also shot at The Virgil for her opening number in the drag bar, the Greek Theatre for her first performance of Shallow. Excuse me, Sha-hello. And the Shrine Auditorium for the final scene, which is also where Judy taped "The Man That Got Away" from her version. Another nod to the Judy Garland one. A sad note about this final scene right before filming it, Gaga learned that her longtime friend was close to losing their battle with cancer. So she snuck off set and drove an hour to try and say goodbye, only to find out that she had actually missed her friend's death by 10 minutes. She drove straight back to set and they shot "I'll Never Love Again" in one take.

• 1:05:08Chris Winterbauer?

  Wow.

• 1:05:10Lizzie Bassett?

  Cooper would stay in character while directing scenes where Jackson was the most shitfaced. And here is Dave Chappelle at TIFF describing a little bit of what that was like.

• 1:05:21Speaker 06

  Literally, we would be just sitting before take and he would just talk to me about a scene. We would talk about the relationship with the characters. We would talk about, you know, what things were about. And then I would see that Bradley was slurring his words. And then as we were talking about, oh shit, we're shooting.

• 1:05:48Speaker 06

  But like for me, like, you know, I never really had much interest in being a movie actor. But if I were a movie actor, it'd be really hard to work with any other director because he's so sensitive to the emotional content of the characters and the people that are portraying the characters. It was amazing to see.

• 1:06:11Chris Winterbauer?

  I will remind Mr. Chappelle of his incredible turn in Con Air.

• 1:06:19Lizzie Bassett?

  That's right.

• 1:06:20Chris Winterbauer?

  Which is one of my favorite films he's ever been in. So he is a movie actor.

• 1:06:23Lizzie Bassett?

  He is a movie actor.

• 1:06:25Chris Winterbauer?

  And Half Baked.

• 1:06:26Lizzie Bassett?

  That's right.

• 1:06:26Chris Winterbauer?

  Great film.

• 1:06:27Lizzie Bassett?

  So Cooper used menthol to make his eyes bloodshot and watery. He also got a self tan every other day.

• 1:06:35Chris Winterbauer?

  He does look, my one thought, the first scene when he's in the drag bar, because of the way it's lit, he looks.

• 1:06:44Lizzie Bassett?

  Like purple.

• 1:06:45Chris Winterbauer?

  So, oh, he looks like he is.

• 1:06:49Chris Winterbauer?

  Dying of, um, what is the colloidal silver that people take?

• 1:06:56Lizzie Bassett?

  The love has one disease. Yeah.

• 1:06:58Chris Winterbauer?

  They think it's a medicinal and they turn purple.

• 1:07:02Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah. He does.

• 1:07:04Chris Winterbauer?

  He is positively radioactive in that first scene.

• 1:07:07Lizzie Bassett?

  I love it. Good for him.

• 1:07:08Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:09Lizzie Bassett?

  In total, they shot for only about 42 days, which I think is.

• 1:07:14Chris Winterbauer?

  That's very quick.

• 1:07:14Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah, very quick for the scale of this.

• 1:07:16Chris Winterbauer?

  Absolutely.

• 1:07:17Lizzie Bassett?

  Now, I couldn't find a ton about post-production, but it sounds like Cooper had quite a lot of time, which was both a blessing and a curse. Lebatique referenced seeing at least five different cuts of the film with Cooper focusing more and more intently on the love story each time. To your point, I think they were just chopping this farther and farther down. Lebatique told the American cinematographer, quote, "After a while, it's like one of those situations on Top Chef, put your knives down."

• 1:07:41Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:42Lizzie Bassett?

  But he also spoke extremely highly of Cooper, saying he's a great leader because he encourages everyone to think. That is consistent across every interview I saw with every cast and crew member on this, is that I think Bradley Cooper does what we've seen in all the best directors, which is that he hires people he trusts and then he actually listens to them.

• 1:08:00Chris Winterbauer?

  I will say, it's such a trade off because I do think that the love story is very easy to track in this one, much easier to track in earlier than in earlier versions.

• 1:08:08Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:08Chris Winterbauer?

  The professional, in particular, fall of Jackson Maine is very hard to track, I would argue, in this one.

• 1:08:16Lizzie Bassett?

  You know what? That doesn't bother me because he doesn't, he doesn't actually fall professionally necessarily. Like, he is not, he's not a flop at the top of this, which I think is interesting.

• 1:08:27Chris Winterbauer?

  No, but I think they're implying that he does, you know, he does the sellout show.

• 1:08:32Lizzie Bassett?

  That's true.

• 1:08:33Chris Winterbauer?

  Where he's playing like a pharmaceutical conference or something like that. And then he obviously is booked, he believes, to sing at the Grammys, but then it's effectively to play rhythm guitar, you know, to a Roy Orbison impersonator or something like that. And my point is, those scenes are played for aftermath as opposed to for cause. And I agree with you. I think they struck a great balance. However, in the earlier versions, you get more of that downward spiral professionally than you do here. And I wonder if those scenes are on the cutting room floor.

• 1:09:05Lizzie Bassett?

  Definitely. They probably are. A Star is Born premiered at Venice Film Festival, August 31, 2018, to rave reviews and opened wide October 5 of 2018.

• 1:09:16Lizzie Bassett?

  I mentioned Live Nation earlier. As far as I understand it, their involvement was more around promo and release than it was securing concert venues for filming. They put the trailer in front of thousands of music fans at live events like Lollapalooza. And then, this is a bit creepy, they used Ticketmaster to send emails to anyone who had brought Lady Gaga tickets for her most recent tour. They didn't even stop there. They also targeted Dave Chappelle fans and even Bruno Mars fans because Mark Ronson had co-written Uptown Funk. It worked. This movie made so much money. On a relatively modest budget of around $36 million, again, this was a lot of favors called in, it made over $430 million worldwide.

• 1:09:56Chris Winterbauer?

  Crazy successful.

• 1:09:57Lizzie Bassett?

  Yes. While there was some valid criticism of the film's treatment of addiction and also its depiction of pop music as seemingly soulless, that's actually my biggest problem with the whole thing, is sort of what Ally turns into and that that is played as negative in some lights of this.

• 1:10:15Chris Winterbauer?

  Well, I think it's tough. It's like they're trying to, I don't know, I was trying to think of a contemporary, and I think it almost feels like they compressed Taylor Swift's entire two-decade career into a like, six-month trajectory, and which is why it feels a little rushed. It also reminded me of the, I don't know if it's apocryphal or not, but the story of how Florence Welsh, Florence and the Machine was discovered. Like, somebody heard her singing in a pub in London, and you know, she kind of exploded off the strength of her voice, obviously. Anyway, I don't know, I didn't think they hit that that hard, personally. I thought it was more from Jackson's perspective. He was saying like, "Look at you, you sell out," but he was a hypocrite too, so it didn't bother me that much.

• 1:10:54Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah, that's true. There's also quite a bit of discussion about whether the gender politics of the film are as antiquated as the source material, or if Cooper did something different here. I, as I mentioned at the top, I think he does something different. I think that unlike pretty much all of the previous versions, his downfall is not directly tied to her success. He's a mess who's hiding it well at the beginning, versus all of the other versions where he's kind of already a washed-up drunken slob. Like, James Mason is a huge mess in the Judy Garland one at the top, like, embarrassing disaster. And Kris Kristofferson is a mess too, at the top of his. He's also fully rooting for her in

• 1:11:36Lizzie Bassett?

  this one, I think. I think he, I mean, I think there is some jealousy that comes forward, but I don't think that is what destroys him.

• 1:11:45Chris Winterbauer?

  I think I would offer maybe one of two interpretations. I think the first is he is deeply self-destructive and toxic.

• 1:11:55Lizzie Bassett?

  Yes.

• 1:11:55Chris Winterbauer?

  And he struggles with her ascent in many ways. And from, you know, she tells him about her meeting with the manager. He rubs the cream cheese on her face.

• 1:12:05Lizzie Bassett?

  Totally.

• 1:12:06Chris Winterbauer?

  And it's kind of played as playful, but it's, he's being a prick.

• 1:12:09Lizzie Bassett?

  No, it's clear that he's being a drunken asshole.

• 1:12:11Chris Winterbauer?

  And I think his inability to recognize that, you know, he needs to accept that this night is not for him at the Grammys. You know what I mean? Is another instance of sabotage. I understand it's played a little more as self-destructive and then she's the inadvertent collateral damage.

• 1:12:29Lizzie Bassett?

  I think more so than in most of the other versions, it is played as him not fully understanding what he is doing. The, I mean, the James Mason one, he literally stands up there and says, I need a job.

• 1:12:42Chris Winterbauer?

  No, I know. I guess, and my, the way I interpret the ending of this version, though, ultimately is that he, the noble version is he like, he recognizes that there's no way out for him. And that at some point he will fuck up and bring her back down. And so therefore he's gonna, you know, pull the, pull the ripcord.

• 1:13:02Lizzie Bassett?

  Yes.

• 1:13:02Chris Winterbauer?

  The toxic version of that, though, is it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. He, he, he doesn't set her free.

• 1:13:09Lizzie Bassett?

  No.

• 1:13:09Chris Winterbauer?

  He hangs himself and pulls her emotionally with him. So she'll always have a foot half in the grave with him.

• 1:13:16Lizzie Bassett?

  Yes.

• 1:13:16Chris Winterbauer?

  So I don't know. I guess I'm just hesitant to say.

• 1:13:18Lizzie Bassett?

  No, here, here's what I, here's my thing. I think this is the only version where it feels like he did actually have a way out and that they could have potentially had a life together where she maintained her career and he was happy. It like, it, I think it's the Dave Chappelle section of this movie that actually achieves that. Um, where he has someone offering to him, this is a port in the storm. This is actually good. You could do this. You could be happy. And I think he believes it. And then the impetus for him to, you know, take the final act here is actually not anything that she does. It's what her slimy manager comes and tells him, which is that.

• 1:13:55Chris Winterbauer?

  Fair.

• 1:13:56Lizzie Bassett?

  You will always drag her down. That is different from the other versions and almost all the other ones. I think particularly the Judy Garland one, which is really heartbreaking. He overhears a conversation between her and the studio head where she is saying to the studio head. Take me out of my contract. I need to be done. My job is now taking care of him. That's it. I want to leave. And he's like, I'm not going to do that to her because I'm always going to be a mess. So.

• 1:14:21Chris Winterbauer?

  What I liked about that version too. I love that that ending.

• 1:14:24Lizzie Bassett?

  It's really sad. Sean Penn, who Bradley Cooper once watched with rapt attention at the Actors Studio in New York City, said, "It's the best, most important commercial film I've seen in so many years." But one critic, Chris, who definitely didn't love it, was Barbara.

• 1:14:42Lizzie Bassett?

  Miss Streisand told Variety, quote, "At first, when I heard it was going to be done again, it was supposed to be Will Smith and Beyonce. And I thought, that's interesting. Really make it different again. Different kind of music, integrated actors. I thought it was a great idea."

• 1:14:54Chris Winterbauer?

  Integrated actors.

• 1:14:55Lizzie Bassett?

  That's what it says. Oh, Babs.

• 1:14:57Chris Winterbauer?

  All right.

• 1:14:58Lizzie Bassett?

  So I was surprised when I saw how alike it was to the version that I did in 1976. Well,

• 1:15:05Lizzie Bassett?

  you made a movie. I mean, there are similarities. Anyway, yeah, yeah.

• 1:15:08Chris Winterbauer?

  No, it's a remake, to be fair.

• 1:15:10Lizzie Bassett?

  It's a remake. She went on to call the film "the wrong idea" in future interviews and stated that she, quote, "doesn't care so much about success as I do originality."

• 1:15:19Chris Winterbauer?

  Yours was also a remake of a remake.

• 1:15:23Lizzie Bassett?

  I know, I know. Something else Barbara related that raised a few eyebrows that you've mentioned in the post Me Too era was the inclusion of John Peters as a producer on the film. Remember that he produced the 1976 version with Babs and he was her boyfriend at the time? In 2011, he was ordered to pay an assistant $3 million in damages for sexual harassment. That is pretty disgusting. I will not get into it. Warner Brothers was forced to issue a statement that John Peters' attachment to this property goes as far back as 1976 and legally, we had to honor the contractual obligation in order to make this film. Fun fact, not the first time Warner Brothers had to pay him out for doing absolutely nothing. He collected millions on Man of Steel because of his involvement in the franchise. And according to him, quote, "My reputation scares these guys."

• 1:16:10Lizzie Bassett?

  Cool dude.

• 1:16:10Chris Winterbauer?

  Scares a lot of people.

• 1:16:12Lizzie Bassett?

  Although, a Star is Born producer, Bill Gerber, did say that John could not have been more helpful getting it all in line in regards to the 20 years of development on the film. So, I don't know how involved he was in this. All right, we're almost at the end here. Rumors of infidelity plagued both Gaga and Cooper because they were, as we said, so googly eyed and drooly with each other during the press tour. I'm not going to give this that much real estate because A, I don't care. And, yes, Chris?

• 1:16:37Chris Winterbauer?

  I will say, it's probably just the good quality of Mr. Cooper's, but every clip you played me of Lady Gaga talking, he is staring at her.

• 1:16:47Lizzie Bassett?

  They are staring at each other.

• 1:16:49Chris Winterbauer?

  I know, but in particular, he doesn't even move. I was like, "Good God, sir."

• 1:16:54Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah. Listen, of course, they fell in love with each other after doing this movie.

• 1:16:58Chris Winterbauer?

  But also, they're selling, they're selling the movie and...

• 1:17:01Lizzie Bassett?

  They're selling the ultimate, you know, Hollywood love story.

• 1:17:04Chris Winterbauer?

  A great job selling it.

• 1:17:05Lizzie Bassett?

  I'm sure they did love each other. It doesn't, like, it may not have been a romantic love. This was an enormous effort on both of their parts. They had deep respect for each other.

• 1:17:13Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:14Lizzie Bassett?

  I don't care. Didn't help that he did end up breaking up with Irina Shayk a few months after their extraordinarily googly Oscars performance, but whatever.

• 1:17:23Lizzie Bassett?

  Speaking of the Oscars, we have to briefly mention Lady Gaga's famous, "There can be 99 people in a room who don't believe in you" speech that she said over and over during the press tour. If you are not familiar, here is the line.

• 1:17:36Speaker 05

  You can have 100 people in the room that are watching you, and 99 don't believe in you, and one does, and that was him. So, you know, all my gratitude goes to him.

• 1:17:49Lizzie Bassett?

  Now, it was laughed at and much memed, but I'm going to say this again, who cares? I think she was nervous. She was unaccustomed to actually being in the spotlight in this way, which sounds weird, but she really hadn't done, like... I think interviews on this scale prior to this, where she is really being herself and more stripped down. I can totally see feeling like you have a good story or good line and repeating it and then not thinking about how it will be perceived. That being said, she does say it in every interview and I watched a lot of them.

• 1:18:20Chris Winterbauer?

  There are 99 people in this world, but Bradley Cooper is one of them.

• 1:18:25Lizzie Bassett?

  Oh, my God. Yeah, it was. It was a lot, but whatever. All in all, the film was nominated for eight Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, and only one for Best Original Song.

• 1:18:37Chris Winterbauer?

  And not Best Director.

• 1:18:38Lizzie Bassett?

  That is correct. That's what I was just gonna say. I think he was robbed of a Best Director nomination for this. I'm not saying he should have won.

• 1:18:46Chris Winterbauer?

  Do you know who was nominated?

• 1:18:48Lizzie Bassett?

  Yes, I do. I have the list.

• 1:18:50Chris Winterbauer?

  Oh, great.

• 1:18:51Lizzie Bassett?

  I came prepared, Chris, for your questions.

• 1:18:53Chris Winterbauer?

  Let's Monday morning quarterback it.

• 1:18:55Lizzie Bassett?

  So the other nominees were Spike Lee for Black Klansman, I would say deserved, Alfonso Cuarón for Roma, who won, very deserved, Pawel Pawlkowski for Cold War, Yorgos Lanthimos for The Favorite, and Adam McKay for Vice. I think there's one you can scoot, scoot right out of there and put Mr. Cooper in, and it is that one.

• 1:19:18Chris Winterbauer?

  I would have kicked McKay off. There is one other person on that list who I actually also would have kicked off, but I'm gonna keep that to myself.

• 1:19:24Lizzie Bassett?

  Spike Lee, he didn't like Black Klansman. I did.

• 1:19:30Chris Winterbauer?

  I liked it. I just didn't think it was his best work.

• 1:19:36Lizzie Bassett?

  Okay, there you go.

• 1:19:37Chris Winterbauer?

  Cut it, David, cut it.

• 1:19:39Lizzie Bassett?

  Leave it in. I think this is bullshit. I think the fact that he did not get a nomination for this as a directorial debut is ridiculous. And I love Adam McKay. I think he's great. Vice is certainly not his greatest work. Christian Bale's great, but outside of that, you know, not amazing. So, yeah, I'm still mad about this. And you know what? I think they've done a disservice by not nominating him because he's trying really hard in all of his other movies. Did you see Maestro? He tries so hard.

• 1:20:06Chris Winterbauer?

  That's, I mean, I think, I think in a way that. Again, it it works against him. And I think it's very Hollywood thing. This need to make it feel effortless, or this need to make it seem as if you don't want it when everybody wants it. You know what I mean?

• 1:20:23Lizzie Bassett?

  Well, he did want it and like really campaigned for it.

• 1:20:26Chris Winterbauer?

  I agree. He's he did. He said, this is what I want. And he continues to say that this is what he wants. You open yourself up to a line of criticism that is, oh, are you just striving, you know?

• 1:20:38Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:38Chris Winterbauer?

  For that glory or to achieve greatness. And at the end of the day, like, do you choose a vehicle like Maestro or A Star is Born as a means to an end, as opposed to a story to tell? Again, I don't think that's entirely fair. But I do think he, in a way, gets punished. I mean, Leonardo DiCaprio, there is the running joke, you know, of him crawling his way to his Oscar and the Revenant that we discussed in that episode. It reminds me of that a little bit.

• 1:21:06Lizzie Bassett?

  Well, Chris, the soundtrack also became Gaga's fifth number one album. So did pretty well for everybody, even if Mr. Cooper was snubbed. So finally, here we are at the end. What went right?

• 1:21:19Chris Winterbauer?

  I have to give mine to Lady Gaga. Because I think, and I think Bradley Cooper's great in this movie. I think he directed the hell out of it. And and you could say a lot of her performance, we obviously have to credit to him as a director and as her scene partner. That should not go overlooked. I just, upon rewatching it, was really struck by the fact that I at no point thought of her persona. I didn't think of Lady Gaga. I didn't. I just thought this, she is great. She anchors the scenes that she's in. It does not feel like she slips into melodrama unnecessarily. And she felt very natural. I hope to see her do more acting.

• 1:22:03Chris Winterbauer?

  And my, Elise, I'm going to give one what went wrong. I just give her a more dynamic stage name than Ally. Like, I just, when they were like, and the Grammy goes to Ally, I was like, no!

• 1:22:15Lizzie Bassett?

  Esther Blodgett. Bring it back.

• 1:22:18Chris Winterbauer?

  Vicky.

• 1:22:19Lizzie Bassett?

  Vicky Lester. That's not a hot name either.

• 1:22:22Chris Winterbauer?

  Which is not a better name.

• 1:22:23Lizzie Bassett?

  No, it's not.

• 1:22:25Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:26Lizzie Bassett?

  It's not.

• 1:22:27Chris Winterbauer?

  Anywho, so I'll give mine to Lady Gaga. Stephanie, you are absolutely phenomenal in this movie.

• 1:22:33Lizzie Bassett?

  Yes, she is. And I thoroughly enjoyed House of Gucci. I will watch her in pretty much anything. I'm gonna give, I'm gonna give a two parter here. Ah, man, it's hard. There's a lot that goes really right. The obvious one is Bradley Cooper as a director. I think that he was particularly adept at bringing on collaborators for this. I think he knew where his weak spots were and he didn't try to overcompensate by handling everything himself. He relied on industry vets like Eric Roth and Matty Le Batteig. And I think it shows, I think, shows in the cinematography, which is, again, I think, really incredible in this.

• 1:23:18Lizzie Bassett?

  And I think also the desire to bring in this many musicians of the caliber that they did to write everything. It just, it sounds great. It looks great. So I guess I will come back and just give it to Bradley Cooper as the, the head of this unwieldy beast and for doing it right in terms of actually listening to and trusting the people that he hired.

• 1:23:42Chris Winterbauer?

  I mean, well deserved. It's certainly one of the best directorial debuts maybe ever and of the last 30 years. Definitely.

• 1:23:49Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah, I think so, too. So that's it. That wraps up A Star is Born.

• 1:23:55Chris Winterbauer?

  And I, I really, I don't think it'll be the last time we visit this franchise. I'm excited to talk about these other movies. It was really fun actually watching kind of how the story changed over the years. And it's really interesting to learn that trajectory. So thank you for walking it through us.

• 1:24:10Lizzie Bassett?

  But of course, we have to thank the people who make this podcast possible, and that is you, dear listeners. Thank you for giving us ratings and reviews. That is a great way to support us. You know what? Little bit of homework for you this week. Tell one person about the show. Try and get one person on board. Tell them something, girl, about this, about this here show. And of course, we have to shout out our patrons. You truly support us. There are many tiers that you can support us at. At $1, you get the right to vote. She bet twice the price. At $5, at $5, you get the ad-free RSS feed.

• 1:24:53Lizzie Bassett?

  Check it out by going to patreon.com/whatwentwrongpodcast. But as always, our Full Stop patrons, those patrons who truly, truly love us, get a very special shout out at the end of every episode. And this one, oh, boy, this one is particularly special.

• 1:25:11Chris Winterbauer?

  I would like to apologize in advance.

• 1:25:14Lizzie Bassett?

  Chris has got a guitar, so.

• 1:25:16Chris Winterbauer?

  I do.

• 1:25:17Lizzie Bassett?

  Get ready.

• 1:25:17Chris Winterbauer?

  All right, let me see if I can figure this out. All right, now, if you're not a patron, I'd suggest you turn this off.

• 1:25:25Lizzie Bassett?

  No, no, no, we're all gonna stay here for Chris slash Ally's debut.

• 1:25:29Chris Winterbauer?

  All right, no, I'm doing Jackson Maine.

• 1:25:32Lizzie Bassett?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:25:33Chris Winterbauer?

  All right, here we go. Let's see.

• 1:25:38Chris Winterbauer?

  This one goes out to our Full Stops. Lance Stider, Night the Knife. Y'all signed up after I wrote the song, so calling you out now.

• 1:25:54Chris Winterbauer?

  Tell me something, friend.

• 1:25:59Chris Winterbauer?

  Tired of podcast ads that never end.

• 1:26:04Chris Winterbauer?

  And do you need more?

• 1:26:08Chris Winterbauer?

  Are you feeling like a corporate whore? Go ahead, free. Get that RSS feed that's so, so clean. Or maybe, if you've got the means, come get a shout out like one of these.

• 1:26:36Chris Winterbauer?

  Tell me something, gang. Do you and Sadie only have one name? Or are you like George?

• 1:26:49Speaker 03

  You leave me wondering if there's something more. Oh Kathleen. Olsen and Tom Kristin with us you stood. So manchino. I pre-ordered your book, it looks so good. Brittany Morris, we don't deserve this. Michael McGrath, you rule. Rosemary Salwood and Steve Winterbauer. I guess I expected from you. I'm thinking Anna, Andrea and Stacy.

• 1:27:34Speaker 03

  Dammel and Half Greyhound. Ramon Villanueva, you just may have saved us. Darren and Dale, stick around. I'm thinking Andrew McFagel Bagel. I'm thinking Matthew Jacobson. I'm thinking Brian Donahue. Don Schabel, I'm thinking you. Adrian Pankoria and Leah Bowman, you bought our love. Helen Singleton and trust to Scott Girlwin.

• 1:28:18Speaker 03

  You got a place with us. Without Jewish or resumé. Poor Chris Leo, we would surely be lost. Jake Killen, keep on killing it. Grace Potter, I hope you didn't listen to this.

• 1:28:44Chris Winterbauer?

  All right. That was my thank you. I'm very embarrassed.

• 1:28:50Lizzie Bassett?

  By the way.

• 1:28:51Chris Winterbauer?

  Thank you all.

• 1:28:51Lizzie Bassett?

  That was not Lucas Nelson playing the guitar. Bradley Cooper stuck it. That was Chris Winterbauer.

• 1:28:57Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah, that's right.

• 1:28:59Lizzie Bassett?

  That was great, Chris.

• 1:28:59Chris Winterbauer?

  That's why you can hear all the mistakes.

• 1:29:01Lizzie Bassett?

  Good job.

• 1:29:03Chris Winterbauer?

  Never really learned the guitar. As I mentioned, I've studied the piano since I was five.

• 1:29:07Lizzie Bassett?

  All right, what's coming up next week, Chris?

• 1:29:11Chris Winterbauer?

  Next, we are talking about the seminal 1999 Star Wars reboot. Lizzie's face.

• 1:29:23Lizzie Bassett?

  I forgot, that's what was next.

• 1:29:25Chris Winterbauer?

  We're talking about the Phantom Menace. Guys, I'm very excited. It's gonna be a really fun episode. Whether you like the movie or not, it is a fascinating story. And really, I'll just say, it is a deep dive into the mind and emotional turmoil of George Lucas. And I'm very excited.

• 1:29:44Lizzie Bassett?

  All right, I'm ready.

• 1:29:47Chris Winterbauer?

  All right, I just gotta send that file off to David to autotune and we will.

• 1:29:52Lizzie Bassett?

  We'll see you in two weeks. Thank you, everybody.

• 1:29:55Chris Winterbauer?

  Thanks, guys.

• 1:29:57Speaker 07

  Go to patreon.com/whatwentwrongpodcast to support What Went Wrong and check out our website at whatwentwrongpod.com. What Went Wrong is a Sad Boom podcast presented by Lizzie Basset and Chris Winterbauer. Editing and music by David Bowman. Research for this episode provided by Sarah Baum.