After a childhood spent watching and worshipping Hollywood auteurs, Bradley Cooper has found himself collaborating with them (Clint Eastwood and Steven Spielberg are mentors) over a nearly three-decade career. From early TV breakout moments on Sex and the City, Alias, and Nip/Tuck to scene-stealing roles in Wet Hot American Summer, Wedding Crashers, and The Hangover, Cooper has solidified himself as a bona fide star, helped along by collaborations with David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle) and Eastwood (American Sniper), not to mention his own acclaimed directorial debut, A Star Is Born. This year, his sophomore movie as a filmmaker—Maestro, an exploration of marriage, fame, and family—has earned him three Academy Award nominations (best picture, best actor, best original screenplay). We’re thrilled to have him as part of our 2024 Hollywood Issue.

Vanity Fair: How do you know when you’ve landed on a story that you have to tell? When do you know that story will work for you?

Bradley Cooper: I don’t even honestly know if I could put it into words, because it is a feeling state and it’s sort of instinctual. You just sort of know it. And you know it because one realizes that the amount of work it will take to realize this story has to be fueled by an immense furnace of energy inside of oneself. And that energy is motivated by love of it. So it hits me like a diamond in the middle of the head. That’s what it feels like. And it comes when you’re not looking.

I mean, for [A Star Is Born], it was Annie Lennox singing on television. I think it was the Grammys, maybe, and I was sitting there with Clint Eastwood, and we were at the Chateau Marmont. And in that moment I saw Annie Lennox and the veins in her neck. And I thought, Well, there’s no more powerful way to experience what it is to be a human than seeing somebody sing live. And in that moment I turned to Clint and I said, “Should we do A Star Is Born?” That had sort of passed him already, because at one point he wanted me to act in it years prior, and I didn’t think I was ready.

But I went to bed that night and I dreamt about this opening 10 minutes, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I went to Warner Brothers the next day and pitched those 10 minutes to Greg Silverman, who I had done American Sniper with, and he knew how much I loved filmmaking, and that’s how it started. It was Annie Lennox singing. And for Maestro, it was something that was living inside of me since I was a kid. This love of conducting. The magical element of the exercise of waving your hand and music audibly being played seemingly because of your movements—I felt like a wizard, and that always stayed inside of me.

So fast-forward to the opportunity of this project. It was like two things meeting. It was Steven Spielberg talking to me about this idea. And then that coupled with the love of the idea of playing a conductor, which I always felt I had inside of me—that moment of marriage elicited a response of a need to tell a story as long as I felt like there was one to tell. And then Maestro was born out of research and becoming intoxicated with the sound of Felicia and Lenny’s conversations together. It was just something I always wanted to be around. And that’s how that happened.

So you never really… And there’s this other movie—a terrifying thing I want to do—and that all came while I was brushing my teeth, like, eight months ago, honestly. And I don’t know, it all came to me. I was like, I’m going to be 50 and I’m still in pretty good shape…. If it ever comes to be, it would be wonderful. But that’s how that happened, that idea. So I think as long as I stay open as a human being, then I have a chance for these inspirational moments to occur. They’re random. They’re random moments that ping you.

Is This Thing On? with Will Arnett is reportedly your next project.

Yeah.

Is that what you’re talking about? Can we talk about it?

Maybe not, just because it’s not solidified yet.

Having spent all this time with Leonard Bernstein, is there another historical figure whose story you feel drawn to tell?

I don’t really even think in terms of that. So the answer’s no. [Laughs] But maybe tomorrow I’ll trip and fall and I’ll think: Harry Truman! It has to be Harry Truman!

You mentioned Steven Spielberg. Obviously, as a director, that’s a good person to be able to call a friend and a mentor. What is some of the best advice he’s given you?

His best advice has been given by example of how he works as an artist. And for a man who has changed cinema in America and globally to still have the curiosity of a child, it’s very inspiring. I think that’s the biggest lesson he’s given me—that it’s okay to maintain that childlike joy and curiosity with what we do. There’s nothing uncool about it. It actually is the nourishment one needs to keep going. And he lives his artistic life that way, and anybody that’s around him feels it immediately.

Spielberg produced Maestro. If the buzz about the two of you making a movie with the old Steve McQueen character Frank Bullitt is real, would you look forward to that? It’d be a new kind of collaboration with Steven behind the camera and you onscreen.

Yeah. It may become real. I’d be the luckiest guy in the world to act in a movie for Steven Spielberg. So if that does bear fruit, I would be the first one knocking on the door to do it.

As we talk about Spielberg, Bernstein, even Truman, I can’t help but think about legacy, which is a topic that is so carefully navigated and explored throughout Maestro—both personally and then professionally. Now that you’re on the other side of making this movie, do you have any more clarity on what you hope your own legacy might be?

I’ve never really thought about legacy because, in the end, everything turns to dust anyway. I’m always like, Well, legacy, sure—until it’s all gone, and then nothing matters. [Laughs] That said, there’s something about having a child and knowing that once you’re gone, they’ll always have these pieces of work to revisit…. That’s something that I find pleasurable—that our daughter will always be able to have these moments with her father if she chooses to.

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Maestro is also a love letter to New York City, where you’ve made a home for yourself and your family. Why was capturing the city so important to you?

My relationship to New York is [similar] to Lenny’s in so many ways. He went to Harvard, and then he went to [the Curtis Institute of Music] in Philadelphia, and then he was living at Aaron Copland’s, and then he got a job as an assistant to Artur Rodzinski at the New York Philharmonic and moved into the top of Carnegie Hall. And it felt like New York breathed life into him, and he found a group of people and he was able to explore musical theater, and he was just, as a 24-year-old, on fire there.

And I too felt like that [after] growing up in Philadelphia and leaving Georgetown and not really ever feeling like I was in an environment with like-minded people that could talk about movies for endless amounts of hours without feeling like time had passed. I found myself in New York City, just filled with inspiration. The LAByrinth Theater was going on at the time with Philip Seymour Hoffman, and then the Upright Citizens Brigade was soaring with Amy Poehler and Matt Besser and [Matt] Walsh. And it just felt like New York has always been a character in my life. And now I live there. I wanted New York to serve as that character for Lenny, for better and for worse. Then they move out of there into Fairfield to create this nuclear utopic home with all its own realities. It just felt like we could establish New York, and then how New York could turn as one ages and starts to maybe evolve in certain ways and become blinded by their own behavior. All of those things felt like we could put them up against this back lot of this city, which is a breathing character. It always has been for me and for so many people. I mean, I remember when I moved to New York—you only have to live there for about six months before you start calling yourself a New Yorker. I’ve never been to a city where so many people start saying they’re New Yorkers so quickly.

True. I don’t think I’ve ever called myself an Angeleno.

[Laughs] Right, exactly. Being a New Yorker is an intoxicating identity.

Talk to me about working with cinematographer Matthew Libatique, and how you two came together to tell this story in such precise lockstep, whether it was creating the worlds of New York and Fairfield, the opening one-shot, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade scene, the staggering Mahler moment, or just your exploration of aspect ratios and color.

Well, we met on Star Is Born and had an incredible experience. And, as he has said, we became friends. And we both, I think, have evolved together. Because I was lucky enough for Mattie to sign on to this a long time before we shot the film, he really enabled me to be bolder cinematically, knowing that I have this partner with me.

It was really an opportunity, and an evolution since A Star Is Born, to use more tools in order to tell the story. The use of aspect ratio, the use of color, the use of depth, the use of the camerawork—all of it in this movie is completely geared toward the story that we wanted to tell. And I didn’t harness all of those things in the same way for A Star Is Born, because I don’t think I was bold enough to take that risk. But because of Mattie—like anything else, when you have people that believe in you and want to go down this road with you, you’re more willing to take risks.

Finding the perfect Felicia was crucial to the success of this film. When did you know it was Carey Mulligan?

I believe Felicia chose Carey Mulligan and then pointed her in the direction of me. That’s the way I experienced it, quite honestly. The photos and videos of her during the research period all just screamed Carey Mulligan to me. And then she happened to be doing a one-woman show in the West Village. I went to see it early on—end of 2017, maybe, beginning of 2018. She came onstage, and she happened to have her hair blonde at that point, which Felicia had for a lot of her midlife. And the key light went on Carey and the stage, and it was as if I was introduced to Felicia.

So from that point on, it was only about trying to talk her into signing on to a movie that truly had a few shots in my mind that I was able to relate to her and the idea of what the story was going to be, but no script or anything else, and asking her to join that at that stage of the process. Her trust in me so early on yielded our ability to work for so much prep. And if she hadn’t taken that risk, we wouldn’t have had all of that time—if she would’ve said, “Well, let me wait and let me see what a script looks like…” and all of the normal things that I’ve experienced that usually happen.

Your costars—Mulligan and others—often comment on your appetite to learn. They say you inspire them to take up new hobbies or interests outside of the world of film.

If I’m just looking at it historically, things that I’ve explored, they do come with hobbies, or things that can become hobbies after. Being able to learn how to cook, and be proficient with certain firearms, and learning about music in a way I never had, and then learning about classical music, conducting, all of these things. Singing. Really, these are the beautiful gifts that come out of these experiences.

I’ve spent time in the house that Lenny lived in in Los Angeles during his On the Town chapter. Lots of little secret doors and interesting details.

I still have so many questions. Imagine if Lenny was still alive.

Well, you had the support of his three children. During the strike, they introduced the screenings for you and seemed incredibly moved. What was it like collaborating with them?

An essential element. There was a blood-pumping life force. And to not tap into that would be criminal in exploring this story. The three children—they’re incredible, just like their father.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. For fashion and beauty details, go to VF.com/credits.