{"id":704878,"date":"2025-12-23T22:20:34","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T19:20:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/laura-dern-on-a-bradley-coopers-is-this-thing-on\/"},"modified":"2025-12-23T22:20:34","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T19:20:34","slug":"laura-dern-on-a-bradley-coopers-is-this-thing-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/laura-dern-on-a-bradley-coopers-is-this-thing-on\/","title":{"rendered":"Laura Dern on a Bradley Cooper’s Is This Thing On?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\tEarlier this year, when Laura Dern started shooting Is This Thing On?<\/em>, she noticed her dynamic with director Bradley Cooper echoing her past work with David Lynch, who\u2019d cast Dern in her breakout Blue Velvet<\/em> role nearly 40 years earlier. \u201cPeople might think, app<\/a>ropriately, that this would be the first time I\u2019d have had the experience of the director being the camera operator,\u201d Dern says, noting that Cooper took on that job just as Lynch had in the past. \u201cBut I\u2019ve been lucky to have that experience firsthand [repeatedly], in a very raw way, where your director becomes your partner.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tOver the past several decades, Lynch remained one of Dern\u2019s closest artistic collaborators, as she starred in everything from Wild at Heart <\/em>to Inland Empire <\/em>to Twin Peaks: The Return<\/em>. He died just before filming began on Is This Thing On<\/em>. <\/em>\u201cIt was a very tender, heartbreaking time,\u201d Dern admits. \u201cI feel like I\u2019m still just at the beginning of it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tDern has been touched closely by 12 months of profound loss and grief for Los Angeles, the city in which she was born, raised, and still works and lives. At this point, she\u2019s all but embedded in its heartbeat, from her work with the Academy as a Governor and museum board member to her singular filmography across iconic movies and TV series<\/a>. January saw Lynch\u2019s passing and the devastating wildfires in the Pacific Palisades and Altadena. Last month, her mother, the Oscar-nominated actor Diane Ladd, died by Dern\u2019s side at 89 years old. And on this December afternoon, we\u2019re speaking just a few days out from the brutal killings of Rob and Michele Reiner, whose son Nick has been charged with their murders.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cLiterally, my kids are in this house like it\u2019s the countdown to Christmas, but it\u2019s just for getting to the end of this year,\u201d Dern says with a weary laugh. \u201cThat\u2019s the most common discussion.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAs to how she\u2019s holding up these days? \u201cI just haven\u2019t gotten there yet \u2014 I haven\u2019t let myself be in it yet,\u201d Dern says of processing her mother\u2019s passing. \u201cIt\u2019s the same in a weird way with David and other losses that have happened this year \u2014 it\u2019s so compounded. But I will say, while I\u2019m in the deep thick of it, looking at photos and watching things and trying to figure out how to honor her and honor him and all of that to come, I feel really blessed by their legacies \u2014 by holding onto the things they\u2019ve given us in art and in friendship and in memories, in stories and in activism, in all of it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tDern adds, \u201cAnd I am particularly grateful \u2014 sincerely \u2014 that this is the movie that I\u2019m talking about. I\u2019m talking about intimacy and grace and longing and grief and being true to yourself. Honestly, I said to my publicist, if it were any other themes, I don\u2019t think I could do this at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tLaura Dern and Will Arnett in Is This Thing On?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJason McDonald\/Searchlight Pictures<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\t\u201cThis was my first opportunity and blessing to be part of a movie that I knew Rob Reiner had gifted us,\u201d the 58-year-old Dern tells me right out of the gate. What does she mean by that? \u201cKnowing how to balance truth and complication and flawed characters and joy and hopefulness \u2014 it feels like an impossible task, but one that he seemed to always be able to give us.\u201d Is This Thing On? <\/em>was made intently in that tradition.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tDern met Cooper about a decade ago, and before long became a close friend and colleague as he made the shift to directing. \u201cAnything he was acting in, he was like, \u2018Will you look at this? What do you think?\u2019\u201d Dern says. \u201cThen once he started directing, I was with him to watch screen tests and camera tests, or read early drafts.\u201d On both A Star Is Born <\/em>and Maestro<\/em>, \u201cWe played around with scenes together watching cuts in the editing room.\u201d She didn\u2019t know Arnett as well, but he too was tight with Cooper. As they embarked on Is This Thing On?<\/em>\u2019s emotional two-hander together, the actors made each other a promise: \u201cTo be as vulnerable and honest and open as we\u2019ve ever been.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe magic of Dern\u2019s moving, complex performance crystallizes in a scene where she doesn\u2019t say a word. The film traces the lives of separated spouses Alex (Arnett) and Tess (Dern), with the former secretly processing the breakup through an amateur stand-up comedy act. While on a date, Tess inadvertently stumbles into one of Alex\u2019s sets \u2014 which spikily interrogates why their romance fell apart. Tess listens on in shock. With Cooper right there up close with the camera, Dern reacts through it with spectacular nuance. You can feel the actor discovering, then exploring the emotions as they hit her \u2014 newly heartbroken, dryly amused, oddly turned on.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt takes a filmmaker who wants to not only hold on an actor\u2019s face, but let the actor in real time catch up with themselves,\u201d Dern says. \u201cWhat surprised me, but I\u2019m so grateful for, is that I was able to find Will so funny even in the hurt and the pain.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe sequence showcases what Is This Thing On? <\/em>is all about: a warm, honest examination of flawed people reflecting on their mistakes while trying to figure out what they want. While the most modestly scaled film of Cooper\u2019s directing career, it fits neatly into Dern\u2019s oeuvre, which is loaded with movies by such great American humanists as Alexander Payne, Noah Baumbach, Greta Gerwig, Paul Thomas Anderson, Mike White and Kelly Reichardt. Its arrival at the end of a year marked by box-office gloom for films of its type \u2014 sophisticated, relatively quiet character studies made for adults \u2014 is top of mind for Dern. \u201cWe\u2019ve all become desensitized by fireworks, maybe,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\n\tDoes she worry about the future of movies without the fireworks, then? \u201cThe industry gets into a clickbait habit of like, \u2018Oh yeah, that movie\u2019s not doing well, that movie\u2019s not doing well, people didn\u2019t like that movie as much as the other movie,\u2019\u201d Dern says. \u201cBut it\u2019s like, \u2018Well, you\u2019ve said that about 15 movies this season, so maybe it\u2019s that people aren\u2019t going to the movies.\u2019<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhat worries me is the noise of, \u2018I guess people are just only watching it at home.\u2019 When people talk about smaller, independent film \u2014 movies about people \u2014 as though those are movies you can stay home to watch because they\u2019re intimate, they\u2019re missing the point,\u201d she continues. \u201cTo be next to your neighbor that you don\u2019t know, you\u2019re giving yourself the opportunity to, one, have a shared experience; and two, you\u2019re then walking down to your car with the person you went with and you\u2019re talking about it \u2014 and then you\u2019re going to dinner and maybe getting into a relationship conversation you wouldn\u2019t have had otherwise. That\u2019s the church of movie going that I was raised on, and I just don\u2019t ever want us to lose that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThis has been Dern\u2019s biggest onscreen year since before the pandemic, when she won the Oscar for 2019\u2019s Marriage Story <\/em>while appearing in Gerwig\u2019s Little Women <\/em>and the second season of Big Little Lies <\/em>that same year. Her other major 2025 credit, Jay Kelly<\/em>, is another Netflix-Baumbach joint in which she effortlessly steals all of her scenes \u2014 this time, as the worn-down publicist of a Hollywood mega-star, played by George Clooney, inching toward a personal reckoning.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tLaura Dern with her mother, Diane Ladd, after being named the 2020 Oscar winner for best supporting actress at the attend the 92nd Annual Academy Awards<\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tKevin Winter\/Getty Images<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tOn the Oscars stage in 2020, Dern called Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarnados a friend; she also toplined the streamer\u2019s romance film Lonely Planet <\/em>last year. In all this talk about theatrical with films like Is This Thing On?<\/em>, I wonder how Dern feels about Netflix\u2019s possible impending acquisition of Warner Bros., which has the town on edge even as Sarandos is promising to maintain the legacy studio\u2019s theatrical strategy. \u201cI\u2019m deeply hopeful that with the news<\/a> at hand that what can come from it is a trust in cinema, that movies deserve to have a theatrical experience and audiences need that and filmmakers that need that,\u201d Dern says. \u201cIf we lose that, we lose the filmmakers. They\u2019ll always be there\u00a0 \u2014 David Lynch will go make a movie with the Sony camcorder and shoot it for $300,000 \u2014 but you don\u2019t get to make the same movies you want to make if you\u2019re not given the financial support to make them. Those movies should be seen in the theaters.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd trust: Dern is going to theaters. \u201cThis is a great year for movies,\u201d she raves. \u201cI\u2019ve been particularly moved by how intimate relationships are at the core of a lot of these films\u2026. Filmmakers are leaning on empathy as a theme. I just saw such a great movie last night, which made me proud of this moment for movies.\u201d I expect her to name a best-picture heavyweight in the conversation with her films, like Sinners <\/em>or Sentimental Value<\/em>. \u201cIt\u2019s Zootopia 2<\/em>!\u201d she cheers. \u201cOh my God. I mean, incredible. Everybody\u2019s finding their way to do it, and to be honest, you don\u2019t want to miss seeing Zootopia 2<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDern brings a life spent on film sets to work every day. Moviemaking is her life and she speaks of the process with reverence, passion and expertise. She had a moment with Cooper on Is This Thing On? <\/em>that says a lot about how she approaches the job these days. They were holding for some kind of noise pollution, maybe a helicopter, to pass while wandering around the set. He stood right in front of her, holding the camera.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe\u2019s staring at me through the lens, and I\u2019m looking at him, and we\u2019re waiting through this moment, and I\u2019m like, \u2018Oh my God, it\u2019s you and me and we\u2019re doing this,\u2019\u201d Dern says. \u201cThere was no adjustment period of like, \u2018Whoa, Bradley is in my face with a camera.\u2019 No \u2014 it\u2019s what we do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFor her noted taste in Hollywood, her work in the trenches with filmmakers like Cooper, Dern only amassed a handful of significant credits behind the camera so far. The big shift came a little over a decade ago with Enlightened<\/em>, HBO\u2019s masterful but underseen series that Dern starred in (winning a Golden Globe and receiving an Emmy nomination), but also co-created and executive produced with Mike White. She\u2019s more recently gone on to help develop series like Apple TV+\u2019s Palm Royale <\/em>and Hulu\u2019s Tiny Beautiful Things<\/em>. But in observing an actor-turned-director like Cooper, might Dern see that in her future too?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cNo one\u2019s asked me recently because, for years, I\u2019d say it is something that fascinates me, but I\u2019ll never do it until my baby goes to college,\u201d Dern says. \u201cAnd now, my baby is at NYU \u2014 so I better get my act together.\u201d She has been thinking about directing, she reveals, but as with every choice in her career, she\u2019s approaching it carefully \u2014 and heart-first. \u201cGod knows I know how much there is to learn as a filmmaker, so I would never do it unless I believe that I was the person to tell the story,\u201d she says. \u201cSo: Maybe. I hope so. I know that the story will reveal itself.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Earlier this year, when Laura Dern started shooting Is This Thing On?, she noticed her dynamic with director Bradley Cooper echoing her past work with David Lynch, who\u2019d cast Dern in her breakout Blue Velvet role nearly 40 years earlier. \u201cPeople might think, appropriately, that this would be the first time I\u2019d have had the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-704878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-social-mediaa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=704878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704878\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=704878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=704878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=704878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}