Lady Gaga isn’t afraid of a challenge. Even so, her latest role in the upcoming Ridley Scott epic “House of Gucci” posed entirely new hardships—and entirely new kinds of preparation, too.
In gearing up to play Patrizia Reggiani, the real-life wife of Maurizio Gucci, “It was nearly impossible for me to speak in the accent as a blonde,” Gaga says in a recent interview with British Vogue. (The character, of course, speaks with a thick Italian accent and has a dark brown coiffe.)
How to Nail a Live TV PerformanceShe realized fairly early on in the process that she’d need to commit to the role like she’s never committed before. So she did—and she went full Method. “I will be fully honest and transparent: I lived as her for a year and a half. And I spoke with an accent for nine months of that,” she says. Asked whether she stuck with the accent off-camera, too, she confirms: “Off-camera. I never broke. I stayed with her.”
Along with her nonstop embodiment of the character, to play her authentically, the singer-turned-actor says she took an almost investigative perspective on the material. “I only felt that I could truly do this story justice if I approached it with the eye of a curious woman,” she says, “who was interested in possessing a journalistic spirit so that I could read between the lines of what was happening in the film’s scenes.”
Fortunately, the “A Star Is Born” Oscar winner did have a leg up when it came to understanding the culture from which her character came: As she frequently likes to remind the world, she is Italian.
READ: The Definitive Guide to Method Acting
Of “Gucci,” Gaga says, “It was the experience of a lifetime making this film, because every minute of every day I thought of my ancestors in Italy and what they had to do so that I could have a better life. I just wanted to make them proud, which is why I made the decision to make the performance about a real woman and not about the idea of a bad woman.”
See Gaga alongside co-stars Adam Driver, Al Pacino, Jared Leto, Salma Hayek, and more when the film opens Nov. 24. Allora!
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