Lady Gaga experienced “some psychological difficulty” shooting House of Gucci.
The 35-year-old pop star plays Italian socialite Patrizia Reggiani in the new Sir Ridley Scott-directed movie, and Gaga admits that starring in the film had a dramatic impact on her real-life self.
She shared: “I had some psychological difficulty at one point towards the end of filming.
“I was either in my hotel room, living and speaking as Reggiani, or I was on set, living and speaking as her.
“I remember I went out into Italy one day with a hat on to take a walk. I hadn’t taken a walk in about two months and I panicked. I thought I was on a movie set.”
Reggiani was convicted of hiring a hitman to kill her ex-husband, Maurizio Gucci, in 1998.
Gaga spent years preparing for the role and it eventually took its toll on her.
She said: “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. And I spoke with an accent for nine months of that.
“Off camera, I never broke. I stayed with her. It was nearly impossible for me to speak in the accent as a blonde.
“I instantly had to dye my hair, and I started to live in a way whereby anything that I looked at, anything that I touched, I started to take notice of where and when I could see money.”
Gaga – who is one of her nation’s best-known Italian-American stars – is also sensitive to how the film will be viewed in Italy.
She told British Vogue’s December issue: “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.”
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