Bradley Cooper Says He Almost Stopped Making Maestro Before Creepy Plane Encounter With Leonard Bernstein’s Alleged Granddaughter

Bradley Cooper says a twist of fate on a plane helped him make his new Leonard Bernstein biopic, Maestro.

The 48-year-old Philadelphia native, who starred in and directed the film about the legendary conductor, appeared on The Howard Stern Show Tuesday to talk about the upcoming movie.

The Academy Award-nominated star said that at one point during the making of the film he was so frustrated that he wanted to quit.

Cooper said he was able to refocus after a chance meeting on a plane with a woman who asked about the film and said she was the goddaughter of the late composer, who died in October 1990.

“For me, the moment that happened, it was like Lenny said, ‘No, motherfucker, you make this movie,’” Cooper said.

Cooper stars in the title role opposite Carey Mulligan, who plays Bernstein’s wife Felicia Montealegre, as the film explores their relationship.

“Every time I saw a picture of Felicia, I kept thinking of Carey Mulligan,” Cooper told Stern of the casting process. ‘It was a moment of divine intervention.

“I was just lucky that I was open enough to listen to what this project was telling me to do, which happened a lot in this film.”

Cooper, who previously directed the Oscar-nominated film A Star Is Born, spent six years working on the musical biopic, exploring both Bernstein’s life and the world of conductors in detail.

“I spent six years doing it because I’m absolutely obsessed with conducting,” he said.

He used his experience at the helm of an orchestra to conduct Gustav Mahler’s Second Symphony.

“What I can almost compare it to was like riding a stallion,” Cooper said, “because it’s its own living, breathing organism.

“So you have to be the leader of it and have control over it, and….” [be] the captain, but you also have to respect that it is a powerful organism – and that is what an orchestra is – as it is in front of you.

Cooper, who previously directed the Oscar-nominated film A Star Is Born, spent six years working on the musical biopic, exploring in detail both Bernstein’s life and the world of conductors.

Cooper told Stern about the film: “I spent six years on it because I’m absolutely obsessed with conducting.”

Cooper told Stern that the lead Symphony No. 2 was ‘heavier than Metallica’

Cooper plays the role of the legendary musical conductor in the film opposite Carey Mulligan, who plays his wife Felicia Montealegre, with the film exploring their relationship.

Cooper said of the film: ‘I spent six years on it because I’m absolutely obsessed with conducting’

Cooper told Stern that the lead Symphony No. 2 was “heavier than Metallica.”

He added, “I just felt like it was so powerful. It’s basically like riding a dragon. It was fucking crazy.”

The cast of the upcoming film includes Maya Hawke, Matt Bomer, Vincenzo Amato, Greg Hildreth, Michael Urie, Brian Klugman, Nick Blaemire, Mallory Portnoy and Sarah Silverman.

Maestro will be released in theaters and on Netflix on December 20.