10 A Star Is Born Easter Eggs You May Have Missed
Warning: This post contains a major spoiler for A Star Is Born.
Every detail in Bradley Cooper's remake of A Star Is Born is carefully thought-out—down to the fact he cast his real dog to play Jackson (Cooper) and Ally's (Lady Gaga) pet. In fact, Cooper makes several references to his private life throughout the movie. Vanity Fair already pointed out a few of them—as well as some other fun Easter eggs—but there are some additional nods you may have missed too. Below, check out 10 small details from A Star Is Born that actually have some pretty big meanings.
1. "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" The first song Ally sings in the film is this classic tune from The Wizard of Oz, which is no doubt a hat tip to Judy Garland, the star of the 1954 A Star Is Born.
2. That bathtub scene Midway through the movie, Ally applies mascara and fake eyebrows to Jackson's face as they canoodle in the bathtub. A similar scene happens in the 1976 version, when Barbara Streisand's character puts blush on Kris Kristofferson’s cheeks and tells him, "You're so pretty." She also bedazzles his eyebrows.
3. The face-touching In one now infamous scene from the new A Star Is Born, Jackson tells Ally he's enamored with her nose and asks if he can touch it. Kristofferson essentially does the same thing to Streisand's character in the 1976 movie (except it's her whole face he's obsessed with—not just the nose). Why this trope has stood the test of time in the A Star Is Born universe is unclear.
4. The ear doctor The man who checks out Jackson's ears in the movie (he has tinnitus) is actually Cooper's ear doctor in real life. According to Vanity Fair, his name is William Slattery III, M.D., and he's the president of the House Ear Clinic in Los Angeles. Talk about keeping things real.
5. All of Cooper's actual friends who made appearances According to Vanity Fair, Cooper met Dave Chappelle, who makes an appearance in A Star Is Born, in 2014, and they quickly became friends. Cooper flew to Ohio twice to convince Chappelle to do the movie, and his persistence worked. Other pals of Cooper's who appear in the film include Ron Rifkin and Greg Grunberg, who both did Alias with Cooper, his grad-school friend Gabe Fazio, and Drena De Niro, the daughter of Robert DeNiro, whom Cooper costarred with in Silver Linings Playbook.
6. "Just wanted to take another look at you." This moment, which the Internet has immortalized in a series of memes, actually happens in some way in every iteration of A Star Is Born. Below, here are Gaga's, Garland's, Streisand's, and Janet Gaynor's reactions to the line.
7. The seventies-inspired fashion As Vanity Fair notes, Streisand used her own clothes in her adaptation of A Star Is Born. That retro aesthetic carried over to the new film, particularly with Ally's wedding dress.
8. The opening title The way the title is stylized in the new film harkens back to the '54 Garland version.
9. The noose billboard At the beginning of the film, Jackson and his driver pass a rainbow billboard that's covered in nooses—a not-so-subtle reference to Jackson's death by suicide.
10. Interscope Records Ally says at one point that Interscope Records is interested in signing her. That's Gaga's actual record label.
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