(IN SELECT THEATERS NOV. 22 AND DEC. 20 ON NETFLIX)

Bradley Cooper is following up his Oscarnominated hit A Star is Born by co-writing, directing and starring in Maestro, the love story between conductor/composer Leonard Bernstein and Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein. Funnily enough, Cooper, 48, first became interested in conducting as a child when he was gifted a baton for Christmas. His interest continued, and when he was offered the opportunity to play Bernstein in this film, he realized the most interesting and relatable aspect of it to him was the marriage between Bernstein and Felicia. “It was an unorthodox, genuine love that I found endlessly intriguing,” says Cooper. “This is the story I wanted to tell, a love story.”

Cooper found his Felicia in Carey Mulligan, 38, and the two worked closely together to develop a bond.“That was a major part of cracking how I could make a love story about these two and have it be honest,” says Cooper. “How could I serve the truth of his life within this marriage while not shifting the focus away from them? Lenny’s sexual fluidity could be explored fully as a film but that’s another movie. I wanted to make a movie about these two.”

Then, of course, there was the musical aspect to be considered, the great works both composed and conducted by Bernstein that serve as the score within the film.

“In A Star Is Born, the nuclear weapon was always Lady Gaga’s voice,” says Cooper. “For Maestro, I figured it was mine to mess up because I had a nuclear weapon and that’s Leonard Bernstein’s music. Just the breadth of it, how diverse it is, and how moving it is.”