Bradley Cooper almost bowed out of “The Place Beyond the Pines.”
Writer/director Derek Cianfrance, who co-wrote the feature with future “Sound of Metal” director Darius Marder, revealed during IndieWire’s Screen Talk live at the New Directors/New Films festival that Academy Award-nominated Cooper wavered after receiving an updated script.
Cianfrance brought writer Marder onboard to help rewrite “every word” of “The Place Beyond the Pines” shortly before shooting began. According to Cianfrance, actor Cooper was less than pleased with the updates to his character, a police officer who kills an empathetic thief (Ryan Gosling) midway through the decade-spanning 2013 film.
“I had given [Darius Marder] the script and he had a lot of notes for it, and I kind of agreed with a lot of what he was saying. And so we rewrote every word from 10 weeks to six weeks,” Cianfrance said during Screen Talk live, co-hosted by Anne Thompson and Ryan Lattanzio. “I remember giving Bradley Cooper the copy of ‘The Place Beyond the Pines,’ the new script, and getting a voice message from him saying, ‘Bro, I just want to let you know I read the new draft and I’m out.’”
Cianfrance continued of Cooper’s reaction, “He was like, ‘That’s not the movie that we had signed up to do.’”
Following Cooper’s voice message, Cianfrance quickly took action to secure that the star would still be in the feature, especially since the film was partially funded due to Cooper’s involvement.
“I was moving my family up to Schenectady the next day [to be on location] and the whole crew was coming up there. I had all the money anyway,” Cianfrance said, adding to Cooper, “I was like, ‘Can I come talk to you?’ So I went up to Montreal, and I had a long conversation with him from midnight to 3:30 in the morning where I got him back on. It was only in the last five minutes [when I convinced him]. I think he just got tired. He wanted to go to bed.”
Cianfrance was later attached to reunite with Cooper for “Burnt.” The filmmaker told IndieWire in 2013 that “it just wasn’t my movie to make” despite the script being “great.”
“It just ultimately wasn’t mine; something I created. You know what I mean?,” Cianfrance said at the time. “I didn’t know what I could put into it.”
He instead went on to direct “The Light Between Oceans,” co-write “Sound of Metal,” and helm HBO series “I Know This Much Is True.” Cianfrance is now the producer of “Exhibiting Forgiveness,” Titus Kaphar’s feature directorial debut which is part of the New Directors/New Films program. “Exhibiting Forgiveness” premiered earlier this year at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.
Stay tuned for more in conversation with Derek Cianfrance on the upcoming “Screen Talk,” launching this week on your favorite podcast platforms.
