Bradley Cooper Said That He Bans Chairs From His Movie Sets But People Can Sit On “Apple Boxes,” And It’s Not Going Down Well
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After receiving critical acclaim for his directorial debut, A Star Is Born, in 2018, actor Bradley Cooper is currently promoting the second movie that he both directed and starred in, Maestro.
The movie is about the life and career of composer Leonard Bernstein, centered around his relationship with his wife, Felicia Montealegre Bernstein. Bradley worked closely with Leonard and Felicia’s children during the making of the film, but has been open about the strict boundaries that he had on set.
Despite allowing the children to read over his scripts and have an input in how their parents will be portrayed on screen, Bradley revealed that they were not allowed to be present for any of the filming.
“When we shoot the movie, no one’s allowed on set,” Bradley said in a new interview for Variety, before clarifying that producer Steven Spielberg was the only exception. “Steven Spielberg came three times, but other than him, there’s nobody. It has to be a sanctuary.”
Discussing the family’s reaction to this decision, Bradley added: “At first they were like, ‘Well, we’ve been such a part of it.’ And I said, ‘Trust me.’”
And in the same interview, the star has revealed that this wasn’t his only rule during the production of this film — and the second one has sparked fierce backlash.
Speaking to Spike Lee for Variety’s Directors on Directors series, Bradley explained that he doesn’t have any chairs on set because he believes they cause "energy dips."
He said: “When I direct, I don’t watch playback. There’s no chairs. I’ve always hated chairs on sets; your energy dips the minute you sit down in a chair.”
Bradley also said that there is “no video village,” which references the area on a film set that immediately surrounds the director and is full of monitors and screens.
“So if me and you do a film, there’s no video village?” Spike asked, to which Bradley confirmed: “When I ask you to come act in my movie, yeah.”
Spike then clarified: “No, I’m asking when I’m the director and you’re an actor,” and Bradley replied: “I’ll do whatever you say. I’m your actor.”
And while Bradley clearly has respect for the hierarchy of a movie set, many were left disappointed by the expectations that he has of his cast and crew when he is the one at the top.
Sharing the star’s quotes about not having chairs on set, one person tweeted: “I think every single person on set should get a provided chair, not just cast/video village, because working 12 hour+ days without being allowed to sit down is inhumane.”
“Sorry but even completely able-bodied people are not performing at their artistic best when they’ve been standing for 14 hours,” somebody else agreed.
Another wrote: “For Bradley Cooper and everyone else who needs to to [sic] hear it, you get the best work out of folks when they feel safe, included, and their needs are met. If you have to create harsh conditions to get people to work, you are simply not good at leading. It's a skill issue.”
“I understand the artistic reasons not to have a video village and fully support that,” one more reasoned. “But let the people sit, man. They work hard for you. They stand most the time. We all know there is downtime on film sets no matter how efficiently you shoot. Let the people sit.”
Others pointed out that in the video footage of the interview, Bradley does joke about sitting on “apple boxes” instead of a chair — suggesting that sitting down isn’t banned in its entirety.
However, this comment was not included in the write-up of the interview, and many still felt that cast and crew should be afforded the basic comfort of a chair.
One person pointed out in response: “Yeah apple boxes are not a very nice way to sit. If you work a set for 12 hours you should be able to have breaks and sit down comfortably.”
Interestingly, Bradley isn’t the first director to be caught up in “chairs on set” discourse, with Christopher Nolan facing similar backlash in 2020 when Anne Hathaway told Variety: “Chris also doesn't allow chairs and his reasoning is, if you have chairs, people will sit, and if they're sitting, they're not working.”
“He has these incredible movies in terms of scope and ambition and technical prowess and emotion,” Anne, who worked with Christopher in 2012, added. “It always arrives at the end under schedule and under budget. I think he's onto something with the chair thing."
However, Chris’s spokesperson disputed this comment in a statement to Indiewire, where they explained: “For the record, the only things banned from [Nolan's] sets are cell phones (not always successfully) and smoking (very successfully).”
“The chairs Anne was referring to are the directors' chairs clustered around the video monitor, allocated on the basis of hierarchy not physical need. Chris chooses not to use his but has never banned chairs from the set. Cast and crew can sit wherever and whenever they need, and frequently do,” they concluded.
And chair-gate isn’t the only controversy that Bradley has faced when it comes to Maestro, with the star also being heavily criticized for his choice to wear a large prosthetic nose when playing the Jewish composer.
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