Bradley Cooper wanted Howard Stern to play his brother in “A Star Is Born” (2018).
The “Maestro” director and actor was inspired to ask the radio show host about the role, which ended up going to Sam Elliott, because of his kind eyes.
“I couldn’t believe how gentle your eyes are, how kind your eyes are — like you can’t even hide it,” Cooper said on SiriusXM’s ‘The Howard Stern Show.’ “As much of an asshole you try to be, to me it’s like ‘Well, look how kind his eyes are.’”
Elliott received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Bobby in the fourth iteration of the film, starring Cooper as Jackson Maine and Lady Gaga as Ally.
Stern mentioned his interpretation of “brothers” as similar to Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s sibling relationship in “Twins.” He considered shaving his head for the part.
“I went, ‘No shit, that’s kind of intriguing,’” Howard remembered. “I was really toying with the idea.”
Cooper remained open to collaborating with Howard at another point in the future.
“We still could do something,” he insisted to Howard. “I have to figure out the right thing so that you’ll say yes.”
The conversation then turned to Cooper’s training to sing in “A Star Is Born.”
“That would be a whole lifetime thing,” he explained. “I mean, it took me a year, Howard, of training … three or four times a week just so I could get up and sing in front of people because it’s so hard … it’s not something deep inside of me.”
“First of all, it wasn’t my voice, it was the character’s,” Cooper added, comparing the vocal pattern to Billy Joel. “He always could imitate so many people’s voices. His singing voice was a … patchwork of all these different voices — that’s kind of what Jackson Maine is.”
“The nuclear power of that movie is Lady Gaga’s voice — that has to be recorded live, and so we recorded all the vocals live … so I had to learn how to sing,” he continued. “I had a feeling that I had good pitch and there was something interesting about my voice, but I knew I would have to do a lot of work.”
