Though it's hard to imagine anyone but Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga playing the lead roles in their critically acclaimed remake of A Star Is Born, there were other big names up for their parts.
In a new interview with Variety, Cooper reveals that he initially met with an "actual musician" to play the role of Jackson Maine -- Cooper ended up both directing the film and playing Jackson -- and shares why it didn't work out. Though Cooper doesn't name the musician, Variety reports that it was White Stripes frontman Jack White.
“I saw this other person that I wanted to do this, who is an actual musician,” Cooper says. “But [the studio] wouldn’t make the movie with him.”
Lady Gaga also wasn't the first A-lister up for the role of Ally in a remake of the film. Aside from the well-known talks of Beyonce being attached to the project when Clint Eastwood was still set to direct, producer Bill Gerber reveals more surprising choices.
“Any time a big pop star broke, we would talk about it,” Gerber shares. “Hey, should we do ‘A Star Is Born’ with Lauryn Hill or Aaliyah? Whitney Houston had been talked about way back when.”
During the interview, Cooper and Gaga talk about their song "Shallow," which has become an actual hit on the music charts. The duo says they will perform it at the Oscars next year if it's nominated for Best Song.
"One hundred percent," Gaga says.
“We talked about that actually, because I’m such a maniac,” Cooper adds. “I started texting her the whole pitch of how we should do it. So we’ll see. There might be a cool, unorthodox way we could perform it.”
The GRAMMY-award winning singer covers Variety and actually poses in one of Jackson's shirts from the film for the photoshoot -- which took place at her Malibu home, which she recently had to evacuate due to the Woolsey Canyon fire. During the interview, she admits she's seen A Star Is Born between five and 10 times, and is still deeply affected by it. She shares she recently snuck into a local movie theater to watch it.
“I sat through most of it," Gaga notes. “I had to remove myself before the end. The film moves me so deeply. I feel so entrenched in the character that the second half of the film -- without revealing what happens -- is so emotional and tragic. I have to take myself out of it.”
She's also kept several mementos from the film, including Jackson's shirt, Ally's songbook and a bottle of Mr. Bubble from a bathtub love scene.
“This is very precious to me," she says. "These are heirlooms, or they will be heirlooms one day. They are things I will want to show my little girl or little boy and say, ‘Here they are. You can touch them.’ I want them to have a close, tangible, poetic experience with the film the way I have.”
ET recently spoke to Gaga at the SAG-AFTRA Foundation’s 3rd Annual Patron of the Artists Awards, where she talked about her engagement to talent manager Christian Carino.
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