{"id":707845,"date":"2026-01-15T22:00:47","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T19:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/bradley-cooper-will-arnett-interview-on-making-of-is-this-thing-on\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T22:00:47","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T19:00:47","slug":"bradley-cooper-will-arnett-interview-on-making-of-is-this-thing-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/bradley-cooper-will-arnett-interview-on-making-of-is-this-thing-on\/","title":{"rendered":"Bradley Cooper, Will Arnett Interview on Making of ‘Is This Thing On?’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\tOne year ago, when Bradley Cooper turned 50, he gathered with Jeremy Strong and a few other close friends (who will remain anonymous) at his West Village home to do a table-read workshop of his new film. It was an unconventional way to celebrate a milestone birthday, but as everyone who has known or worked with the actor turned director will report, once a creative idea takes hold, he\u2019s hard-pressed to put it down.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn this case, the project was Is This Thing On?<\/em>, an indie dramedy about a middle-aged couple facing a divorce, eventually starring Laura Dern and Will Arnett (he lent his part, ever so briefly, to Strong on the night of the table read).<\/p>\n

\n\tThe script<\/a> started with Arnett, who had heard the fascinating origin story about U.K. comic John Bishop \u2014 he took the stage at an open mic night to avoid paying the bar\u2019s cover charge and discovered a knack for telling comedic stories about his divorce \u2014 and teamed up with Mark Chappell to write a version of the story. Cooper was in the middle of making Maestro<\/em> when Arnett first mentioned the script. \u201cI was just trying to survive [the shoot] and not even thinking about what I could make next, but I got this image of Will in that movie and couldn\u2019t get it out of my head,\u201d says Cooper. \u201cSo I asked him, \u2018Would you be open to me coming in and doing this with you?\u2019 It was like an itch that just got in me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCooper and Arnett had worked together before, with small parts in the mid-aughts comedies The Rocker<\/em> and The Comebacks<\/em>, but they first met decades ago at Peter McManus Cafe in Manhattan. \u201cI was going to meet my ex, Amy [Poehler], and I walked in and Bradley was there with Janeane Garofalo,\u201d says Arnett. \u201cI didn\u2019t realize at the beginning what the objective of the evening was, and then it was like, \u2018Oh wait, I\u2019m being vetted.\u2019 \u201d The two became fast friends, even living together in Los Angeles\u2019 Venice neighborhood a few years later (right across from Dennis Hopper, no less), and by 2024 they\u2019d become extremely close.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tArnett as Alex, processing his divorce through stand-up. Shane Gillis, a friend of Cooper\u2019s, suggested Arnett go onstage for live sets, giving up 10 minutes of his own show in Austin. Arnett also performed sets at the Comedy Cellar, where parts of the movie are set. \u201cI wound up going every night for six weeks,\u201d he says.
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\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJason McDonald\/Searchlight Pictures<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tWhen they decided to partner on Is This Thing On?<\/em>, Cooper knew he wanted to build a creative team of other close friends. He tapped Weston Middleton, a collaborator since he was Cooper\u2019s PA on 2009\u2019s All About Steve<\/em>, to produce. He re-upped his partnership with Matthew Libatique, who was director of photography on all of Cooper\u2019s films (after an initial referral from Jennifer\u00a0Lawrence, who\u2019d worked with Libatique on mother!<\/em>). Ozark<\/em>\u2018s Peter Thorell joined as first AD by way of Arnett\u2019s SmartLess<\/em> co-host Jason Bateman; Sean Hayes and his husband, Scott Icenogle, also appear in the film, a casting decision that came out of a hang session with Arnett and Cooper.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn the original script, stand-up comedy was the A story and the relationship was the B story, but the last thing I wanted to do was make a fictionalized version of what it\u2019s like to be a stand-up comic,\u201d says Cooper. \u201cThere are so many good documentaries about that already.\u201d He wanted to shift the story\u2019s perspective and put Arnett\u2019s fictional wife more front and center \u2014 and he knew he needed to lean on another old friend for that.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI was standing in Bradley\u2019s kitchen about a year before we actually made the movie, and he started describing this script of Will\u2019s that he\u2019d read,\u201d says Dern. \u201cHe told me, \u2018The relationship should be the core of this movie, and we haven\u2019t found it yet, and we\u2019d need you to join us to be able to find it.\u2019 \u201d Dern said yes on the spot and spent the next months consulting with Cooper to build out her character, a former Olympic volleyball player who is struggling to find her own identity in marriage and motherhood.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile Dern was fleshing out the relationship (and taking volleyball lessons), Arnett was working on stand-up. Cooper had asked comedia<\/a>n (and friend, of course) Shane Gillis for early notes, and Gillis suggested that Arnett start going onstage for live sets, eventually ceding 10 minutes of his own headlining show in Austin. Later, as they were scouting locations in New York, the manager of the Comedy Cellar persuaded Arnett to go onstage. \u201cI knew I\u2019d have to do a few sets to practice, but I wound up going up every night for six weeks, which I never could have imagined,\u201d says Arnett.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tFrom left: It\u2019s game<\/a> night for Cooper, Arnett and Andra Day in a scene from Is Thing Thing On? <\/em>
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\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJason McDonald\/Searchlight Pictures<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tBy the time they started principal photography in the spring, the small, sub-$10 million project that Cooper initially envisioned became considerably larger. \u201cSince the story is so intimate, we realized we needed certain parts of it to feel epic, to add gravitas,\u201d says Middleton, adding that their partnership with Searchlight helped blow out the movie. They decided to lean in to place, filming not only at the Comedy Cellar but around the West Village and even in Grand Central Station. \u201cAs the mayor\u2019s office kept telling us, New York City is a luxury product,\u201d Middleton says, laughing.<\/p>\n

\n\tCooper was still deeply inspired by the image of Arnett \u2014 onstage, in front of a mic, with an extreme close-up shot \u2014 that came to him on the first day he heard about Is This Thing On?<\/em>, so he decided to join the cinematographers union and do a large amount of the filming himself (alongside camera operator Scott Sakamoto). \u201cI loved that I was low on the totem pole and that I had to get everybody\u2019s respect,\u201d he says of the gig. Adds Libatique, \u201cWe\u2019re a handheld movie, and Bradley and Will are about the same height, so that also gave us a great advantage.\u201d Cooper borrowed a technique he learned from David O. Russell and had ongoing conversations with his actors as he held the camera in their faces. \u201cThe postproduction sound guys came up with the term DBC, which meant to take Bradley\u2019s voice out of the dialogue,\u201d Middleton says with a laugh about the de-Bradley-Cooper-ifying.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn A Star Is Born<\/em>, they\u2019d learned that getting the hardest scenes out of the way first, such as shooting all of the concert footage at the beginning, gave them great momentum. This time, the team decided that it would be critical to film all of the Comedy Cellar scenes upfront, starting with Arnett\u2019s open mic nights and working their way up to a pivotal moment that sees Dern\u2019s character accidentally watching his set about sleeping with another woman. Dern took a red-eye flight from the 2025 Oscars ceremony to make it in time for her first day. \u201cThat was in my top two in terms of jumping right in, alongside having to huff paint on day one of Citizen Ruth<\/em>,\u201d she says. \u201cBut we\u2019d already done so much work and prep together that I knew exactly where we were supposed to be in that scene. We\u2019re watching this woman, in real time, see her entire marriage flash before her eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tCooper (left) and Arnett on set. <\/span><\/p>\n

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

\n\tThe movie\u2019s opening and closing scenes take place at the couple\u2019s children\u2019s school, and Cooper decided to use his daughter\u2019s real-life auditorium in the West Village. The intro features a slumped-over, dejected Arnett oblivious to the delights of the students\u2019 Chinese New Year celebration going on around him and was inspired by an assembly he attended. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t to that degree, but I saw parents on their phones as this group performed, and I thought it was so fascinating that there was something so majestic happening and it seemed like no one even knew it was happening,\u201d says Cooper. The crew gathered 300 of his daughter\u2019s schoolmates as extras, using a bar across the street and several city buses to hold the \u201cactors\u201d as they loaded into the school building.<\/p>\n

\n\tCooper originally wrote the ending around a school band performance of \u201cDon\u2019t Stop Believin\u2019 \u201d \u2014 as their kids played, Dern would lean over to Arnett and say, \u201cDon\u2019t stop believing, baby.\u201d But he couldn\u2019t shake the sense that The Sopranos<\/em> had already used the famous song to an inimitable degree. Dern eventually sent him a video of Eddie Vedder and Ben Harper performing \u201cUnder Pressure\u201d live onstage, and something clicked. He rewrote the final scene, and as a result, the film\u2019s entire score of percussive notes became based around the song.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe\u2019d often get breakfast burritos together before going to set, and we\u2019d be walking through the Village and Bradley would just start singing a doom ba dum, and I was like, oh, he\u2019s locking in on \u2018Under Pressure,\u2019 \u201d says Arnett. But for the director, it went deeper than the catchy tune. \u201cI love that David Bowie and Freddie Mercury are two voices that should not be complementary in a duet, but they\u2019re so different that they work perfectly,\u201d Cooper says. \u201cThat\u2019s how so much of a relationship can be. I wanted an emotionally compelling ending that feels hopeful but doesn\u2019t say that they\u2019re definitively back together. It\u2019s a moment of hope, but they are under pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tAlex and Dern\u2019s character Tessa momentarily reconnect post-divorce. Says Cooper: \u201cI wanted an emotionally compelling moment that feels hopeful but doesn\u2019t say that they\u2019re back together.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Searchlight Pictures<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tThis story appeared in the Jan. 15 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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One year ago, when Bradley Cooper turned 50, he gathered with Jeremy Strong and a few other close friends (who will remain anonymous) at his West Village home to do a table-read workshop of his new film. It was an unconventional way to celebrate a milestone birthday, but as everyone who has known or worked…<\/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-707845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-social-mediaa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707845","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=707845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707845\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=707845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=707845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=707845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}