Movies

Lady Gaga let 'nobody' tell her how to approach House of Gucci — 'Not even Patrizia' herself

Gaga says she approached the film with a "journalistic spirit" after wanting to be a "combat journalist" as a child, which prompted her to speak in an Italian accent for nine months off set.

By

Joey Nolfi

Published on November 3, 2021 11:03AM EDT

If Hollywood is a battlefield, Lady Gaga is a "combat journalist" who will do anything for a good story — including immersing herself into the life and work of convicted criminal Patrizia Reggiani both on and off the set of Ridley Scott's fact-based crime drama House of Gucci.

"I only felt that I could truly do this story justice if I approached it with the eye of a curious woman 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," Gaga said in a recent interview with British Vogue, suggesting that she didn't consult Reggiani — who hired an assassin to kill her ex-husband, fashion mogul Maurizio Gucci (Adam Driver) — on the creation of the character. "Meaning that nobody was going to tell me who Patrizia Gucci was. Not even Patrizia Gucci."

Gaga's comments come after Reggiani previously told an Italian newspaper that she was flattered by the Oscar-winning A Star Is Born performer's casting, but "annoyed" that she wasn't consulted on the movie's story, according to the Vogue story.

The 35-year-old's insistence on diving into the character on her own terms stemmed from a lifelong desire to be a journalist, as she revealed that, if she hadn't risen to prominence as one of the most famous pop stars of the contemporary era, she likely would've pursued a career as a reporter.

"I don't know if people know this about me, but if I weren't who I am today, I would have been a combat journalist," she continued. "That was one of my dreams. When I was at the Capitol, the day before [singing at] the inauguration, I remember walking around and looking for evidence of the insurrection."

Piecing together Reggiani's life, however, required gathering evidence of the emotional kind; Gaga says she let Reggiani's affection for expensive, glamorous aesthetics seep into her everyday life, taking photographs only of things she considered "beautiful" to inspire her. She also revealed that her method immersion into the role prompted her to speak with Reggiani's thick Italian accent for nine months, both on and off set.

"It is three years since I started working on it, and I will be fully honest and transparent: I lived as her for a year and a half," Gaga said, adding that dying her signature blonde hair dark brown completed the transformation physically and spiritually. "I never broke. I stayed with her."

While Gaga's method approach led to a brief "silence" and "disconnect" from her own family, costume designer Janty Yates previously told EW that Gaga wanted Reggiani's elegant wardrobe to serve as a tribute to the beauty of her Italian-American mother, Cynthia Germanotta.

"She introduced the whole fact, saying 'I want to look like my mother,'" Yates said. "[Gaga's] mother is an elegant Italian woman who'd wear something, just to shop... She carried a certain flair, and [Gaga] wanted to look like her."

House of Gucci releases Nov. 24 in theaters.

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Lady Gaga let 'nobody' tell her how to approach House of Gucci — 'Not even Patrizia' herself

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