Lady Gaga 'absolutely' consulted Bradley Cooper before taking House of Gucci role

There could be 100 awards on the Oscars trail, and Lady Gaga might take all of them for her role in House of Gucci.

More than 20 years after making her small-screen debut in a background role on The Sopranos, and two years after winning an Oscar for A Star Is Born, the singer and actress joins EW's Awardist podcast (above) to discuss her work in the Ridley Scott-directed film. She stars in the biographical drama as Patrizia Reggiani, who hired a hitman to kill her Gucci heir husband (played by Adam Driver) in 1995. For Gaga, the shocking act wasn't born out of cold-blooded instinct, but rather is an example of the way "women can lose their way when it comes to the trauma of living within patriarchal systems."

The film continues Gaga's interest in exploring the suppression of women who ultimately "snap" and react with violence under pressure — something she's also tackled in her music, including the videos for "Bad Romance," "Paparazzi," and "G.U.Y."

"It's always been something that I've found fascinating, and something I was faced with my whole life as a young woman, a young woman in what is very much a man's business, and the wall of men you have to climb over to get anywhere," she says. "To say it was a catastrophe for me over and over is an understatement."

Revisiting past traumas through Patrizia's eyes left "an indelible branding" on her soul, she explains, adding that her immersive approach to playing the part (she spoke in an accent for nine months, wrote an autobiography in Patrizia's voice, and even lightly disconnected from her own family to prepare) wasn't always "emotionally nourishing."

"[She was] starving for love, starving for a place in the world, starving to matter, and I was starving, too," Gaga says. "I know this about myself and I'm working on it; I have a masochistic approach to acting and art, and it's something I struggle with and that I work on, and I don't think it's necessarily the way, it's just my way."

One Oscar victory, multiple Grammys, and world-renowned status as a global icon later, however, it's clear that she's making the right choices for her art. Over Thanksgiving weekend, Gucci became the highest-grossing drama at the domestic box office in two years, proving Gaga's mammoth success in winning an Oscar for her first feature, Bradley Cooper's 2019 Best Picture nominee A Star Is Born, was no fluke.

Still, while her talents are all her own, she credits Cooper with helping to shape her future as a bankable, respectable actress, not just another pop star-actress crossover. Because of their partnership throughout A Star Is Born, she says she's able to "read lots of scripts and talk to lots of different directors," and regularly enlists his advice on her acting career.

"Bradley Cooper believed in me for the role of Ally Maine in A Star Is Born," she continues, revealing that she "absolutely" consulted him before taking on the role of Patrizia. "It was the success of our artistic collaboration that landed me where I am now."

Listen to Gaga's full interview on EW's The Awardist podcast above. The episode is now available wherever you listen to podcasts. Subscribe for new episodes every Monday. Our new season covers the road to the 2022 Academy Awards with in-depth analysis and interviews with Benedict Cumberbatch, Kenneth Branagh, Mike Mills, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Ruth Negga, and more Oscar contenders.

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