Neal PrestonLady Gaga is making her movie debut in A Star Is Born, as an aspiring singer taken under the wing of a veteran star, played by Bradley Cooper. While Lady Gaga already had the singing part down, Cooper didn’t — and he was shocked when Gaga insisted that if he didn’t learn, it would be a dealbreaker.
According to Billboard, Cooper — who’s also directed the film — told an audience at New York’s Tribeca Film Festival, “She said right from the beginning that this was going to be a bargain: [She told me] ‘I’m gonna rely on you to get a performance that’s honest out of me…and I’m gonna make sure you turn into a musician, because we’re going to sing everything live.'”
Cooper continued, “I thought, wait, what? She said, ‘I can’t stand when I watch movies when they have music and you can tell when it’s pre-recorded and people are lip-syncing.’ And she’s right. So that was terrifying, but I really relied on her.”
So Cooper took music lessons for 18 months so he could play guitar and sing like an actual rock star. He even filmed himself performing onstage at real-life music festivals like Glastonbury and Stagecoach.
“You can’t hide when you sing,” he said. “To me, the best way to express love is through singing and music. I knew that if I could marry that in a way, that’d be special. Lady Gaga is just kind of a revelation.”
A Star Is Born hits theaters this October.
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