‘Jumping Off the Cliff Every Day’: Emma Stone and Bradley Cooper Spent Six Years Each on ‘Poor Things’ and ‘Maestro’

“Coopsy Poopies!”

That’s how Emma Stone greets Bradley Cooper, whom she’s known since 2007. They both played supporting roles in the indie heavy metal comedy “The Rocker,” starring Rainn Wilson, and then reunited on Cameron Crowe’s 2015 commercial misfire “Aloha.” In all those years, they’ve became such good friends that Stone brought her mother to Cooper’s house to watch a cut of “Maestro,” his second film as a writer-director after “A Star Is Born.” In “Maestro,” Cooper plays legendary stage and screen composer Leonard Bernstein opposite Carey Mulligan as Bernstein’s wife, Felicia.

Cooper, meanwhile, was bursting with praise for Stone’s tour-de-force performance in “Poor Things” as Bella Baxter. In her latest collaboration with Yorgos Lanthimos — with whom Stone first worked in 2018’s “The Favourite” — she plays a Victorian woman who’s been implanted with a child’s brain and must find a way to regain her footing in European society.

BRADLEY COOPER: I do want to talk about your immense talent. Is that OK? 

EMMA STONE: Why are your eyes so closed? 

COOPER: Because I realized as I’ve gotten more comfortable with myself, I think better when my eyes are closed. Just deal with it, dude. 

STONE: All right, fine. I’m going to do it too. [Closes eyes] 

COOPER: Tell me it doesn’t feel good. 

STONE: It actually does feel good. I’ll fall asleep if I do it for too long. 

COOPER: Can I just skip to “Poor Things”? Just because I was blown away by the film. I’ll never forget the FaceTime we had after I saw it. 

STONE: You’ll never forget it? 

COOPER: I’m serious. Just be here with me. Just breathe and let me talk. I love you so dearly as a friend, but to see you soar as an artist in this film, it was really moving. Just your effortless abandon. I think I said this to you: There’s absolutely no one else who could have done that — like, ever. I assume you didn’t shoot in order? 

STONE: No. 

COOPER: So how the eff were you able to track her evolution? Because you’re basically playing a baby to a 35-year-old in the matter of two hours. 

STONE: Thank you for saying all of that. It’s so incredibly sweet of you. Yorgos told me about the overall structure of the story right after we made “The Favourite.” We realized that we needed to create stages for her, so we made it five. In Baxter’s house, we basically did stage one and stage five, because we only had that location then. And then we did the middle of the movie. 

COOPER: How did you prepare for each stage? 

STONE: We went to Budapest for a monthlong rehearsal process with the other actors. And then we would have solo rehearsals with just him and me where we would work on the walk for an entire day. I went into it being more literal than I needed to be, watching videos of a toddler learning to walk or how someone says their first words. Because she’s in this fully formed, adult healthy body, her relationship to not knowing how to walk — it’s not even like you could compare it to someone who’s just been in an accident and is recovering and learning to walk. She’s completely fine. It’s just her brain that hasn’t caught up, which was great because there was nothing to compare it to. So it was just completely … 

COOPER: … imagination. 

STONE: Like, “Does this work? Does that not work? This looks stupid.” I mean, it all looks a little stupid, but that’s part of the fun. 

COOPER: It’s all absolutely believable. 

STONE: Well, I’m glad you feel that way. But it’s a metaphor. It’s not based on a true story. You know that, right? 

COOPER: I got it. I did my research, dude. 

STONE: That rehearsal process was so helpful because we all got to know each other so well. All you do in a rehearsal with Yorgos is mess around. You play theater games. You’re not reading the scenes and working out how they’re going to go. It’s very playful. Like, you’re a human noodle or you’re doing log rolls or whatever. Really fun things where you kind of embarrass yourself. So everybody feels really silly. 

COOPER: Like a troupe?  

STONE: Like a troupe! 

COOPER: That’s what his movies feel like, quite honestly. It feels like I’m watching this film, and then they’re going to take it somewhere else. 

STONE: That’s exactly what it feels like by the time you’re even on set for the first day. We’ve already had dinner every night; we’ve already been all over each other in rehearsals and have made fun of each other and been embarrassed. So there’s nothing that really feels like it’s off-limits when you’re on set, because you’re with your friends, basically. 

So can I ask you a little bit about “My-as-tro”? 

COOPER: Wow, I love the way you pronounced that. 

STONE: Pronounced what? 

COOPER: “My-as-tro.” 

STONE: Your film, “My-as-tro.” 

COOPER: Sure. 

STONE: My mother and I were an absolute wreck by the middle of the film, and so in awe of what you were doing, what Carey was doing, your direction. That conducting scene, which I was in full body chills for — how long was that? 

COOPER: Six minutes. 

STONE: Insane. It felt like I was watching a true conductor, a master at work.  

COOPER: I messed up the whole first day. The minute I was behind tempo, it was over. So I woke up in the morning, walked into that church, and it was empty — we’re not supposed to shoot there that day. I was like, I got to give it one more shot. I brought everybody back in, and I actually said a prayer to Lenny in front of everybody, like, “Thank you for this opportunity. We’re going to do it again.” That’s what’s in the movie. It was one take. 

STONE: Whoa! 

COOPER: My memory of that was that I was actually floating above the orchestra and that I was able to point to each musician. 

STONE: Do you think that’s where conductors get to? 

COOPER: I don’t know, but it was the most … Singing at the Oscars, playing at Glastonbury, didn’t even compare to what that experience was.  

STONE: I remember having dinner at your house, and you were talking about Lenny and that idea for the opening shot. So to see that in the film years later, it was just so personally fulfilling to watch. I heard Spielberg was going to direct? 

COOPER: He was, and he talked to me about potentially acting in it, because he knew how much I loved conducting since I was a kid. Obsessed with it. 

STONE: How did you get into conducting as a kid? 

COOPER: Tom and Jerry, Bugs Bunny. I asked Santa Claus for a baton when I was around 8 years old, and then I would just conduct all the time because there was classical music playing in my house. I would spend hours and hours. 

STONE: It was really in you. 

COOPER: I’ve done so much work on believing I’m a conductor that if I ever had the chance to play one, there’s years and years of rehearsal inside of me. And when you believe you are something … That’s all we’re trying to do anyway. 

And then [Spielberg] wasn’t going to direct it. I had just finished “A Star Is Born,” and I had really found what I loved, which is writing and directing movies. I just said, “Well, what would you think if I took it on?” I showed him “A Star Is Born,” and he said, “Yeah.” Then I had to get the rights to the music from the kids, and I started doing research. That’s how it started back in the end of 2017. 

STONE: That’s a long time. 

COOPER: I’m so glad that we’re [talking], not only because I love you, but because I feel like you couldn’t have made “Poor Things” if you didn’t have a tremendous amount of prep, and it’s the same thing with “Maestro.” This wasn’t like you got a call, and in six months you’re going to do it. This had to have taken years. 

STONE: Obviously, I didn’t direct “Poor Things.” You were also writing, directing, producing. You were in every single facet of that experience. That’s so much to take on. But it is interesting that these projects began in 2017, and then we made them years later. For both of us, this lived in the same frame of time, where even when you’re not actively prepping, it’s weirdly working its way inside of you because you’re thinking about it so much. 

COOPER: It’s a gift. 

STONE: It’s a huge gift. And it’s also scary because you have so much time to think about everything that could go wrong or the ways that you could fuck this up — at least for me — when you love something so deeply. As you’ve said that you do with Leonard. 

COOPER: I have felt that before in projects, and maybe that’s because … I’ve just recently realized that maybe I’m a bit of a control freak. 

STONE: You just realized that? 

COOPER: Yeah.

STONE: Oh.

COOPER: But I knew that if “Maestro” was going to mess up, it was all on me. I was not beholden to anybody else. There was a freedom in that, as well as a huge burden. 

STONE: That makes sense. 

COOPER: But that’s why this kind of thing to me feels completely different. I’ll carry it with me the rest of my life. It has changed who I am as an artist.

And when I watch your performance in that film, there’s no version where I don’t think that’s the same case for you. Even though I’m not physically naked, I was completely naked putting on this prosthetic and being him and the way he talked. I would direct the movie that way, just because it was easier. But I felt so vulnerable.

Just watching your performance, you had to give yourself permission, which I had to do as well, to just jump off the cliff every day, in terms of giving over to — I don’t know — people laughing at us on set, quite honestly. Did you feel that there was that level of abandon that you had to have? 

STONE: I did. But to your point, Yorgos says all the time that the final product is on him. There’s a captain of the ship that I fully trust and have such admiration and immense respect for. In that circumstance, people did laugh at me — he would laugh at me. He’d be like, “That one was crazy.” But that was the best because there’s no eggshells. We can fight, we can laugh, all of that is totally free. And when it comes to any of the legitimate nudity, we had this tiny, tiny crew. Robbie Ryan, our cinematographer, looks at me like I’m a table or a lamp. It was amazing. He was just like, “Whatever.” 

COOPER: I’m not even thinking about you actually being physically naked. I just meant like your performance. It’s like, there’s no way she just winged it. Do you know what I mean? You’re sick talented. But that had to be a tremendous amount of work. 

STONE: It was. But it was the most joyous work ever. 

COOPER: And by the way, you’re going to bring her to everything you do because she’s a part of you. I really do think that. Does that sound too hokey? I do believe it though. 

STONE: You do? 

COOPER: Yeah. There’s a fearlessness that I saw that’s not going to go away, that she gave you. 

STONE: I hope not. It was a life-changing experience, just as an actor. 

COOPER: What she demanded of you and what Lenny demanded of me, there’s no way it’s not going to translate. It’s impossible.

This interview has been edited and condensed. Variety Actors on Actors is presented by “Saltburn.”