Lady Gaga triumphs in movie debut at Venice Film Festival
VENICE: Lady Gaga spoke of her painful road to fame after she shone in her movie debut, which premiered on Friday at the Venice Film Festival.
“Many times at the beginning of my career, I was not the most beautiful woman in the room, but I wrote my own songs,” she said.
The story of an “ugly” girl who thinks her nose is too big and hides behind outrageous makeup had autobiographical echoes for the pop star.
The singer was stepping into some big shoes in reprising a role immortalised by Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand.
But critics hailed her magnetic performance and chemistry with co-star Bradley Cooper, who directed the film, which is a remake of the 1937 classic.
Gaga said she dug deep into her own experiences for the role.
When she was trying to make it, “they often wanted me to give my songs to other singers, but I held onto my music with my cold dead fingers. ‘You are not going to take my songs from me’,” she said.
She said she had to be “very strong to negotiate” attempts to remake her.
“I never wanted to be sexy or to be viewed like other women. I wanted to be my own artiste and my own woman.”
Lady Gaga, 32, born Stefani Germanotta, plays an Italian-American waitress and singer who meets a country music star in a drag club.
Sparks fly and soon this odd couple are making romantic and musical fireworks.
Gaga’s biggest fear was “being completely vulnerable and bare” on screen.
“I always love to transform myself and shape shift, it is part of my art and my music. But he (Cooper) wanted to see me with nothing... and he brought out this vulnerability in me, in someone who doesn’t necessarily feel safe to be vulnerable... He made me feel so free.”