"I read the new draft and I'm out": Place Beyond the Pines director reveals Bradley Cooper almost quit after script rewrite

Bradley Cooper almost bowed out of the 2013 feature film, The Place Beyond the Pines, over an updated script, according to director and co-writer Derek Cianfrance, who recently revealed the same in an interview with Anne Thompson and Ryan Lattanzio of ScreenTalk Live at the New Directors/New Films festival.

Cianfrance said that just weeks before filming was scheduled to begin, Bradley Cooper nearly walked away from his role in the 2013 crime drama film after receiving a rewritten script. Cianfrance, who wrote the initial script, explained how just weeks before production, he brought screenwriter Darius Marder on board to help rewrite “every word” of the movie:

“I had given Darius the script and he had a lot of notes for it, and I kind of agreed with a lot of what he was saying. And so we rewrote every word from 10 weeks to six weeks.”

Cianfrance then revealed that when Cooper received the updated script, he was not too thrilled about the changes and sent a voice message saying:

“Bro, I just want to let you know I read the new draft and I’m out.”

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Bradley Cooper was allegedly unhappy with the rewritten script of The Place Beyond the Pines

During IndieWire’s Screen Talk live at the New Directors/New Films festival last week, The Place Beyond the Pines director and writer Derek Cianfrance said Bradley Cooper almost pulled out of the 2013 movie as he had not signed up for the changes in the updated script.

“He was like, ‘That’s not the movie that we had signed up to do.'”

Cianfrance continued that after hearing Cooper’s voice message, he scrambled to secure him in the film since the investors had backed the feature over the actor’s involvement. He said he flew to Montreal and had a conversation with Cooper, who, after much persuading, agreed to do the movie.

“I was like, ‘Can I come talk to you?’ So I went up to Montreal, and I had a long conversation with him from midnight to 3:30 in the morning where I got him back on.”

Cianfrance quipped he may have worn out Bradley Cooper, who at the end of their conversation, acquiesced to do the movie, as he was tired and wanted to go to bed.

“It was only in the last five minutes [when I convinced him]. I think he just got tired. He wanted to go to bed.”

The Place Beyond the Pines, starring Eva Mendes, Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper, was a 2013 crime drama film where a motorcycle rider, played by Gosling, turns to rob banks to provide for his former lover, portrayed by Eva Mendes, and their newborn son. Bradley Cooper plays a police officer who kills Gosling mid-way through the film.

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Derek Cianfrance says he was convinced the Blue Valentine script was cursed

Director Derek Cianfrance had previously worked with Ryan Gosling in the movie Blue Valentine in 2010. During Screen Talk live Cianfrance also referenced the romance drama, saying the project, which was repeatedly stalled, was “cursed” for more than a decade.

Cianfrance revealed he began writing the script in 1998. But it took him 12 years to finally release the movie in 2010. Cianfrance continued to say he first showed the script to Michelle Willaims right after she had come off of shooting Dawson’s Creek in 2003. However, the filmmaker could not find the money to make the movie. Cianfrance recalled:

“I got the script from Michelle Williams. She loved it. OK, now I have this script. It’s draft 30. I got Michelle Williams, she had just come off of ‘Dawson’s Creek.’ She’s going to be great for the movie. No one would give me money. If I had Katie Holmes, I might have money. And so I felt cursed. I went back to the drawing board, wrote it again, wrote it again.”

The writer/director is presently a producer of a feature film, Exhibiting Forgiveness, directed by Titus Kaphar. The film premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.