Leonard Bernstein's Daughter on 'Surreal' Experience Seeing “Maestro” Film About Her Family: 'What a Ride'

Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan play Jamie Bernstein's parents in 'Maestro'

Leonard Bernstein's daughter Jamie and her siblings had a "surreal" experience seeing their family's life portrayed on the big screen.

At a press conference Tuesday attended by PEOPLE, Jamie, 71, reacted to seeing Maestro at its New York Film Festival premiere inside David Geffen Hall, where her late musician father conducted many times before.

She said she and her siblings Alexander and Nina attended the Monday night premiere together and felt their late parents there with them.

"Seeing it in Geffen Hall — you know, the very hall where we watched our dad conduct hundreds of times as we were growing up — was so gratifying," she said, "and such an almost mystical circularity for our lives that we shared with the three of us together, and with our parents."

"Seeing the final version on that giant screen with the incredible Dolby Atmos sound was just overwhelmingly thrilling," continued Jamie. "And also very surreal, of course."

Bradley Cooper directed Maestro and stars as Bernstein opposite Carey Mulligan as his wife, the actress Felicia Montealegre. Maya Hawke portrays Jamie in the film.

Related: Bradley Cooper Used Nose Plug to 'Change His Voice' for 'Maestro,' Reveals Makeup Designer

Bernstein died in 1990 at age 72, and Montealegre died of cancer in 1978 at 56. Jamie said seeing the film be made was an "enormous journey" for their family.

"All the way along it's been surreal to see these two people becoming more and more and more like our own parents, but at different ages, and sometimes they're older than we are now and sometimes they're way younger and sometimes we're the kids," she said.

"You can imagine, it's like having a very strange dream, where you're in your house but it's sort of not your house, and you're with your parents but they're sort of not your parents but they are," said Jamie. "It has that sort of dreamlike quality for us. But what a ride.

Jamie, who published the memoir Famous Father Girl: A Memoir of Growing Up Bernstein in 2018, said Cooper kept her and her siblings involved throughout the process.

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"Bradley was so generous about including my brother and sister and me with him on his own journey with this film — which was something he didn't have to do, necessarily," she said. "Once we gave him permission to make the film, he could've just gone off and never consulted with us again, had he wanted to. But, instead he made us part of his own journey."

Maestro co-writer Josh Singer said Cooper had personal recordings and tapes of the Bernstein family that he "listened to ad nauseam." Singer added, "So much so that he used to be able to write stuff and I'd go, 'Oh, which book did you get that from?' and he'd go, 'No, no, no; I just wrote that.' "

"He literally could channel Lenny in that way. That's how deep he went. Bradley was a lightning rod once he came on," said Singer.

Maestro is on Netflix Dec. 20.

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