Cooper brings out the best in Gaga

TORONTO Lady Gaga took acting lessons, meticulously learned her lines and perhaps was even too prepared for her film debut in A Star Is Born.

But she says director and co-star Bradley Cooper helped pull her down to earth with an important acting lesson early in the shoot.

“He said something off script, and I just said the line I’d memorized,” Gaga said in a recent interview. “I kept repeating the same line over and over again because I didn’t know what to do.”

It happened while shooting a key scene that establishes the undeniable chemistry between two characters from different worlds. Cooper as an alcoholic superstar of country and rock, and Gaga as a small-time entertainer who’s given up her dreams of stardom.

The story starts with a flirtatious friendship in the wee hours of the morning, but blossoms into a passionate romance. And it’s during one of those early scenes when Cooper was riffing off his written lines with improvisational bits.

His approach left Gaga feeling lost. She repeated the same lines, trying to stick to the script.

Cooper recognized her struggle, she said, and urged her to relax and let out her pent-up emotions. That’s when Gaga said she “threw the lines out the window” and began speaking from the heart.

“It really taught me something about being an actor,” she said.

“You have to know the story you’re going to tell. You have to know the lines. But at the end of the day, you have to be as honest as possible.”

Cooper wanted to instil sincerity in his movie to distance it from other Hollywood versions — “authentic no matter what.”

For Gaga, that meant stripping away the layers that make her a global superstar known for her vibrant costumes and persona.

In a story repeated in a recent press tour, Cooper wiped away Gaga’s makeup during the first screen test, a literal unmasking.

She took that suggestion to heart to prepare for the role.

“I dyed my hair and took my makeup off a few months before we started filming to get into the character,” she said.

She also reconnected with her younger self, the firecracker performer who trekked around New York City trying to book small gigs in the early 2000s, years before she climbed the pop charts.

Cooper admires that sort of headstrong determination in his performers. He said the passion and commitment Gaga brought to the role helped deliver on his ambitions as a storyteller.