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We're far from the shallow now.

Hi, I'm Dana Stevens, and welcome to a Slate Spoiler Special podcast on A Star is Born.

Bradley Cooper's new, are we calling it a remake, a reboot, a revisitation?

A new installment of a franchise?

Yeah, can we even think of it as some sort of like nine decade long franchise? So this is the fourth movie entitled A Star is Born to exist in Hollywood history. And you could also throw into that mix if you wanted to a 1932 movie called What Price Hollywood that vaguely inspired the series? We can get into that. But, yeah, I was trying to grapple in my review today at what kind of intellectual property a star is born is at this point. I mean, really, it's a myth. I mean, you can't exactly call this a remake of the last movie, which was in 1976, right? The Barberstrizen version. Right. No, it's been over 40 years. And every time the story is told, even though it always has this common element of an ascending female star and a descending male star who's in love with her, many of the other elements change. And really... Totally different from film to film. Yeah. You can't really regard these things as... I mean, intellectual property is maybe the best way to think of it. Like, you need to get rights to it, but, you know, you don't really owe anything to the property. Think of it as a fairy tale. And then it's remade over and over, like, you know, they make Cinderella many times. You're right. Eternally regenerating. So, and I should mention that I'm sitting here talking to Rachel Sime. Hi, Rachel. Hi, Dana. You are a freelance writer. You write for the New Yorker, the New Republic. You just wrote a big profile of Lady Gaga for the New York Times Magazine, which we'll get into, no doubt. And yeah, I've been waiting to talk with you about this movie ever since we both saw it separately. So I'm very excited. And excitedly texted late at night about how we felt. Yeah. Basically, yeah, we've been sort of swooning over this movie for the past month or so. And so this is our first chance to really lay down our cards and talk about it. Yeah, let's do it. Before we get into it, as if it wasn't sort of obvious from our swoony tone, what did you think overall and would you send people to the movie? Oh, I would send you twice. I loved this movie. It's the kind of movie that actually does demand to be seen twice, and I saw it twice before writing on it because it's a big movie, right? I mean, it's a musical. It's got a lot of moving parts. It's two hours and 15 minutes long. Yes. It's epic in scale. It has a real old school, old Hollywood, let's put on a show, musical theater aspect to it that I think stands up to multiple viewings.

And another important thing to know about it, I think, going in, which has been so hyped in the premiere buzz about it that everybody probably already knows this, but it's Bradley Cooper's directorial debut, his very first movie that he made himself. So in that sense, the star that's being born in some ways is Bradley Cooper, the director, right? I mean,

given the fact that the leading lady, the diva at the center, we already knew was a star going in.

Yeah, no. I mean, who knew that Bradley Cooper knew how to light a scene, but he really does know.

And he also co-wrote the script with two other writers, and he stars in it as well. So it is a

triple threat when it comes to Bradley Cooper. Let's talk about the history of this particular

property for a second. This iteration of a star is born, which has been kicking around in

development hell for how long? I mean, God, 20 years. I've heard there was a version at one point

with Will Smith and Whitney Houston. That's how long ago, sometime in the 90s that was being batted around. And then it was Will Smith and Jennifer Lopez. And then it was Clint Eastwood was going to direct it. And he was going to, the ingenue was going to be played by Beyonce, which I'm sad we never got to see. And then at some point, yeah, Russell Crow maybe came into the picture and fell out. And then Bradley Cooper came in and said Starr and told Clint he wasn't ready to do it. And then at some point, he took over as the director at which point Lady Gaga enters the story. So it's a really long, even just this latest remake or whatever we're calling it,

there was a long road to get to this point.

Right.

And it seems like once it fell into Bradley Cooper's hands and Lady Gaga became attached,

the project also underwent a big rewrite.

Yeah, it took three years or something.

It was a really long process to get the movie to screens.

And in part that, I think, was because he was incorporating autobiographical elements from his life,

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