Bradley Cooper Asked Carey Mulligan to 'Bare Our Souls to Each Other' as Prep for “Maestro ”Roles

"I said, 'Will you go down this road where we're basically going to bare our souls to each other?' " recalled Bradley Cooper

Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan dug deep for Maestro.

In an interview for Mulligan's November Vogue cover, conducted prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike, Cooper discussed how he and his costar prepared to play composer Leonard Bernstein and his wife, actress Felicia Montealegre.

“I knew her ability,” Cooper, 48, told Vogue. “All I asked of her was to please do the prep with me; I said, ‘Will you go down this road where we’re basically going to bare our souls to each other?’ And she was like, ‘Okay, let’s do it, I’m game.’ ”

Mulligan, 38, said for Maestro she underwent "the most intense preparation I’ve ever done for a film," including doing justice to everything from Montealegre's accent to the relationship between her and Bernstein.

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

That preparation, the actress told Vogue, involved a "dream workshop" with Cooper, who also directed and co-wrote the film.

“I guess Bradley’s been doing this kind of thing forever, using your dreams to connect your subconscious to the character’s, but it was new to me,” Mulligan said. “But I had to go all in.”

Calling the connection between the famed composer and his wife "profound," Mulligan added, “They lit each other up. You can hear it: There are tapes of them trading anecdotes and it’s like they’re dancing.”

The two-time Oscar nominee added that Maestro is not a biopic, rather, "It’s a movie about a marriage. A very complicated marriage."

Related: See Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan in Moving Trailer for Leonard Bernstein Biopic 'Maestro'

After Maestro made its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival last month, critics shared largely positive reviews of the new movie, which marks Cooper's next directorial effort after 2018's A Star Is Born.

"We expect that the movie is going to 'explain' their relationship," Variety critic Owen Gleiberman wrote of how Maestro approaches Cooper and Mulligan's characters. "Cooper does something more audacious: He presents it, from every angle, in all its mystery, as a romantic partnership as unique as any other."

Total Film critic Jane Crowther compared the movie to last year's TÁR, which starred Cate Blanchett as a fictional composer who studied under Bernstein.

"This year, she can — literally and figuratively — pass the baton to Bradley Cooper, who disappears inside his performance as Leonard Bernstein," Crowther wrote, adding that Cooper and Mulligan "are organically believable as a partnership, dancing around each other linguistically in a way that’s thrilling to watch."

Maestro is on Netflix Dec. 20.

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