What Is on the A Star Is Born DVD Extras?

1 Gaga Was Genuinely Mourning During the Finale Performance

"I remember that day very unfondly, in a way," said Gaga of filming the song "Never Love Again." Her close friend and the longtime managing director of Haus of Gaga, Sonja Durham, was battling stage four breast, brain, and lung cancer and died the day of Gaga's final performance of the movie. "I actually left the set," she said.

Cooper said the cast and crew were prepared not to shoot that day, but Gaga talked to Sonja's husband, who encouraged her to sing because it was what Sonja would have wanted her to do. In the featurette, Gaga is captured explaining to the audience of extras why the scene was difficult for her and asks for help: "If you could help me today, and really think of not just [Sonja] but how it feels to lose someone, think of her husband maybe, for me. I think that energy will penetrate this room. I think she'll hear it."

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2 The Person Who Filmed the Glastonbury Concert Footage Is Actually a Very Famous Musician

Image Source: Warner Bros.

Watching the film, it's clear that Cooper and Gaga were performing at actual concerts. Many scenes include festival footage, where Bradley performs for thousands of people, including Coachella, Stagecoach, and Glastonbury. Cooper said that himself, the film's cinematographer Matthew Libatique, and two others were the only ones to travel to the Glastonbury Music Festival in England. He had four minutes ahead of Kris Kristofferson to play on stage. One of the cameramen filming on stage with him was Lars Ulrich, drummer and cofounder of Metallica. Cooper asked if he'd be willing to film his performance, and he obliged.

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3 Gaga Left a Surprise Gift For Cooper During His Gut-Wrenching Final Scene

Image Source: Warn

Shooting his final scene of the movie — where Jackson decides to take his life — Cooper said that he went to open up Jackson's truck door and saw roses sitting on the driver's seat, which "Ally" had left for "Jackson."

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4 Ally's Struggles Were Gaga's Struggles in the Music Industry

Image Source: Warner Bros.

Lady Gaga has come a long way since her first album, The Fame, debuted in 2008. From world tours and collaborating with Tony Bennett on the jazz standards album Cheek to Cheek to acting on television in American Horror Story, she's diversified her career in ways many other artists have not.

Gaga mentions that at the beginning, before she got a record deal, she felt very much like Ally did and experienced many of the things she talks to Jackson about. "They liked the way I sounded, but not the way I looked — those things happened to me in real life," she said.

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5 The First Scene Shot in the Film Was . . .

Films are rarely shot chronologically. In A Star Is Born, the first scene filmed was inside a Mexican restaurant, presumably on the drive from Indio to Los Angeles, where Ally tells Jackson her idea for the song "Look What I Found."

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6 This Heartbreaking Scene Used the First Take

Image Source: Warner Bros.

The final scene between Jackson and his brother Bobby, played by Sam Elliott, is one of the more powerful moments in the film. Cooper reveals in the featurette that the take that made it into the film was the first one they shot.

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7 Cooper Took Music Lessons For Months Ahead of Filming

Image Source: Warner Bros.

The movie wouldn't have worked if Cooper wasn't actually performing or was "faking" it, given the amount of scenes that involve him onstage. The actor said he took guitar, piano, and singing lessons for six months before filming began and was told he'd need to sing "thousands of times" before being able to perform in front of a crowd.

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8 The Way the Film Is Shot Reflects How Each Character is Progressing

Image Source: Warner Bros.

One interesting tidbit that comes from the featurette is how thoughtful Cooper was about filming each character. For instance, as Ally starts to become more famous, the camera becomes smoother and sharper. The colors go from Jackson's dull view to brighter and cleaner in a nod to the "bright light" of sobriety.

Jackson is already famous at the start of the film, so throughout the movie, Cooper made a conscious effort to shoot in a way that seems as if Jackson is avoiding the camera — you never see him full on until we reach the end of the movie, when he ultimately decides to take his own life, and he cannot hide from himself anymore.

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