*Content warning: This post contains spoilers for A Star Is Born.
Hello.
Yes.
After weeks of crying about that A Star Is Born ending and then looking at approximately 498059460 photos of Bradley Cooper as Jackson Maine, I still ain’t over it.
I want to talk about the most important movie of my life all day, every day but work keeps getting in the way. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
So, I came up with a very clever way of combining the two things.
You see, there’s lots of hidden Easter eggs and little facts about the movie that you may have missed and I need to be tellin’ the people about them.
Holly Wainwright, Rachel Corbett and Leigh Campbell debriefed on the movie after they watched it:
So, here’s a list of all the little A Star Is Born moments you may have missed… that are guaranteed to make you want to watch it again.
You’re bloody welcome.
1. The movie was originally made in 1937. It has been remade three times – in 1954, in 1976, and in 2018.
2. At the beginning of the movie, Jackson and his driver pass a rainbow billboard that’s covered in nooses. This is a not-so-subtle reference to how Jackson dies at the end of the film.
3. The iconic line “I just wanted to take another look at you” is in all the past versions of the movie.
4. At the cop bar, Jackson isn’t leaning into Ally because he’s a dirty old man, it’s because he can’t hear her.
5. The first time Bradley Cooper heard Lady Gaga sing she was singing Edith Piaf’s”La Vie en Rose” at a charity event. They basically recreated this moment for the movie.
6. The car park scene foreshadows what’s going to happen. As Ally sings an early version of “Shallow’, she stands up and looks down at Jackson like she’s on stage and he is an adoring fan.
7. When Ally leaves her restaurant job early in the movie, she hums “Somewhere Over The Rainbow”. This is a subtle nod to Judy Garland who played the female led in the 1954 version of A Star Is Born.
8. Just like his character Jackson Maine, Bradley Cooper has a personal history with addiction. The actor struggled with an addiction to alcohol and pain killers throughout his 20s. He is now sober.
9. When Jackson is in rehab he tells a story about almost dying from a suicide attempt when he was just a child. This foreshadows his eventual death.
10. The dog that played Ally and Jackson’s dog in the movie is actually Cooper’s real dog, Charlie. Charlie is named after Cooper’s dad who passed away from cancer.
11. Jackson’s relationship with his brother Elliot is inspired by Cooper’s relationship with his own father. In an interview with Vanity Fair at the Toronto Film Festival, Cooper said that, growing up, he wanted to be his father.
12. Just as she was preparing to film the final scene, Lady Gaga received a phone call from her friend who was in the late stages of her battle with cancer. She immediately rushed to her friend but missed her by 10 minutes. When she returned to the set that day, Lady Gaga sang “I’ll Never Love Again” both for the character of Jackson Maine and for her friend who had just passed away.
13. The movie got an eight-minute standing ovation when it premiered. It’s just that good.