Kendall Roy Has Joined The Cast Of Bradley Cooper's Movie About Leonard Bernstein

Gruen, a renaissance man and critic for The New York Herald Tribune and New York magazine, wrote the authorized biography The Private World of Leonard Bernstein.

In his directorial followup to A Star Is Born, Cooper will star as Bernstein, and produce from the script he co-wrote with Oscar-winning Spotlight scribe Josh Singer. The drama spans over 30 years. Bernstein’s career is enough to fill a miniseries: his conducting debut at the New York Philharmonic at 25 when the conductor took ill; without even rehearsing, Bernstein did so well his star was launched the next day when his feat made the front page of the New York Times. He was blacklisted before being cleared of being a communist just before he composed the Oscar-nominated score for On the Waterfront; and he was an activist in the civil rights movement, and outspoken on issues including ending the Vietnam War. But the through line for the movie is the beautifully complex story of the marriage between Bernstein and his wife, Felicia Montealegre. Carey Mulligan is set to play Bernstein’s wife.

Bernstein is one of those figures that had incredibly interesting life that I just can't wait to learn more about. He made some of the most iconic music in the composition for West Side Story, On the Waterfront and much more. He was also an outspoken advocate for progressive causes when it was really not popular to do so. 

Cooper fucking KILLED 'A Star is Born' both as a director and an actor. I'm excited to see what he can do with this, and even more excited to see motherfucking Kendall Roy himself, Jeremy Strong, on the track. An undersung great part of this news as well is that Josh Singer is on the script. 'Spotlight' was absolutely fantastic and a lot of its success had to do with his writing.