BRADLEY COOPER BECOMING BERNSTEIN

HOW THE STAR TRANSFORMED FOR HIS MOST AMBITIOUS ROLE YET: PLAYING A LEGENDARY CONDUCTOR

- NIGEL SMITH

Bradley Cooper took just one hour to decide he wanted to portray iconic conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein after reading the script to Maestro. But years later, when he was finally making the film, it would often take him up to five hours a day in the makeup chair to transform into the musical genius. Now he's an Oscar front-runner for his bravura performance and direction-and he has new fans in the Bernstein family. "We had no idea that Bradley had this level of intensity and commitment about a thing when he got it in his grip," says Bernstein's daughter Jamie, the oldest of his three children. "There are even certain moments in the film, when he's in motion, where he looks so exactly like our dad it makes us gasp." Cooper, 48, leaped at the opportunity to play Bernstein, who was the conductor and music director of the New York Philharmonic in the 1960s and wrote the music for West Side Story.