Lady Gaga Details The 'Dark' Side of Her Method Acting Technique

Lady Gaga really committed to the role for "House of Gucci" by creating a heavily criticized Italian accent. Not only that, but she also indulged herself with a ton of carbs from eating large pasta bowls. If you're going to play an Italian woman who puts on some weight over the years you have to add that weight with pasta right? Gaga mentioned though, that there was a lot more to her method of acting than just eating pasta. The experience, according to Gaga, took a toll on the people around her.

Most of the time, method actors who get to play a real person will submerge themselves in the life of that person to be able to create their character. Lady Gaga took a different route with her approach. She mentions that one of the reasons why this character was so appealing to her was the fact that her ancestors were Italian. To be able to play the character she felt that she needed to find her roots. Gaga told The Hollywood Reporter,

“I worked a lot on digging into my ancestry and kind of reversing the car, reverse assimilation. How do I get out of the Italian American thing and get myself into what it means to be an Italian woman?”

It wasn't just stuffing her face with pasta and bread for Gaga. Something that she does claim to have done. She also spent the better part of 9 months trying to perfect her Italian accent. That accent by the way was heavily criticized by the real Patrizia Reggiani, Gaga's character in the film. To be fair to Lady Gaga, it's an Italian accent for a movie that's shot in English. It's hard to not fall into certain stereotypes of how that's supposed to sound like.

Lady Gaga revealed that she would burst out into character all of a sudden with her friends and family. She mentioned that she potentially did this in front of her parents a few times. They were cool with it, but not everyone around her was as on board with the idea. She mentioned,

“There’s a downside to committing yourself to a role in that way because it’s an adjustment for everybody around you. Suddenly, you’re not talking to Stefani anymore with an accent. You’re talking to Patrizia Gucci,”

A real dark side of having to play this character would be having to meet the Black Widow herself. That's one thing that she wasn't willing to do. Is her method acting really hardcore then? Sorry for the spoilers, but Reggiani spent almost 2 decades in prison for orchestrating the murder of her husband. In real life she sounds like much more of a grim character than what Gaga plays in the movie. So much so that the "Born this way" singer did not agree to meet her. When asked about a potential meetup she replied,

"I don't want to collude with Patrizia Gucci. I think she wants to drive a famous narrative of herself as a notorious killer and a woman who advised Gucci."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGNnpVKxV6s