1. Originally, this remake of A Star Is Born was going to be directed by Clint Eastwood and star Beyoncé.
2. Bradley Cooper started writing the script in 2015 while he was wrapping up performances of The Elephant Man on Broadway.
3. Similar to how Jack and Ally meet, one of the first times Cooper and Gaga met was when she was singing “La Vie en Rose” at a cancer benefit — this was the moment Cooper decided to cast her.
4. When Cooper went to Gaga’s house early in the audition process, he made her wipe away all of her makeup, saying that he wanted her to be “completely open. No artifice.”
5. Lady Gaga changed her hair and stopped wearing makeup months before filming started in order to get into character.
6. To get the movie green-lit by Warner Bros., Cooper played executives a recording of him and Gaga singing “Midnight Special” by Creedence Clearwater Revival together.
7. Once Gaga was on board, Cooper finished the script with her in mind. He said, “I asked her so many questions, and wanted to mine so much of the things that she told me. That completely formed the creation of Ally.”
8. Before casting Sam Elliott in the film, Bradley Cooper worked for six months to make his voice sound like Elliott’s.
9. They filmed the entire movie in only 42 days.
10. Cooper based Jackson Maine’s stage persona on Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder. Cooper said, “I went up to Seattle and spent four or five days with him and I asked him 9,000 questions.”
11. One of the choices Cooper made while playing Jack was to have him take his hat off while he’s on stage to show that he’s not hiding behind something up there — Jack also takes his hat off in the garage at the end of the film.
12. Some of the big concert scenes with Jack and Ally were filmed the week between Lady Gaga headlining both weekends of Coachella in 2017.
13. Gaga helped Cooper get a feel for what a real-life concert is like backstage — Gaga was even candid about how drugs are readily available once you become famous.
14. While filming, Gaga and Cooper developed a shorthand. When Cooper wanted Gaga to evoke a feeling of warmth and love he would whisper “Tony” — a nod to Gaga’s close relationship with Tony Bennett.
15. In order to give the film a feeling of authenticity, Cooper casted Gaga’s actual dancers, choreographer, and hair and makeup artists.
16. Lukas Nelson, Willie Nelson’s son, helped co-write a majority of the songs — Cooper approached him about the project after seeing him play guitar at a Neil Young concert.
17. Nelson and his band, Promise of the Real, appear as Jackson and Ally’s band in the film as well.
18. It was Gaga’s idea to include bits of dialogue throughout the soundtrack.
19. Gaga composed the string arrangement and conducted the orchestra in the studio for the song “Before I Cry.”
20. When Ally is walking up the ramp from work in the beginning of the film, she’s singing the preamble to “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” — an homage to Judy Garland who starred in A Star Is Born in 1954.
21. The scene that broke Cooper’s heart was the final scene between Bobby and Jack in the car — Cooper started crying when they read the scene during the first table read.
22. Cooper’s real-life dog plays the adult version of Ally and Jackson’s dog Charlie.
23. In fact, Charlie is named after Bradley Cooper’s late father — a subtle way that Cooper wanted the memory of his father to be in the film.
24. Lady Gaga performed the final number, “I’ll Never Love Again,” after driving an hour to say her final goodbye to her longtime friend Sonja Durham, who passed away after battling cancer.
25. In fact, the final shot of the movie was done on the very first take after Gaga returned to set — Cooper took the monitor and told Gaga that this would be the last frame of the film.
26. Cooper dedicated A Star Is Born to Elizabeth Kemp, his mentor who passed away in 2017.
27. Gaga said she wants viewers to come away from the film saying, “I saw that movie and I cried my eyes out and I learned something about myself.”