Streisand’s not Gaga about ‘Star’

Gaga, can you hear me? Barbra Streisand is walking back previous praise she’d given the Lady Gaga-starred version of “A Star Is Born,” saying that she was not really impressed with it.

In a recent interview with Australia’s Channel 10, Streisand (inset) said that the Bradley Cooper-directed version of the classic film, which premiered in 2018, lacked originality.

Her comments seem to contradict her early admiration for the Gaga-and-Cooper take.

“I think [Cooper] did a wonderful job with [Gaga],” she told Variety in February 2018. A few months later she told Extra that “of course” she had seen the movie. And that she thought that it was “wonderful.”

The romantic drama has seen four iterations on the big screen since its original 1937 version, starring Janet Gaynor. Nearly two decades later, Judy Garland was nominated for an Academy Award for the same role.

Streisand, who won both an Oscar and an Emmy for the song “Evergreen” for the 1976 version of the film, said that she expected to see something different in the 2018 version. “When I did ‘A Star Is Born’ … Judy Garland was so great in it, I thought, ‘Oh my God, how am I going to do this?’” Streisand said. “I have to change it. I’ll become a guitar-playing singer-songwriter, and Kris Kristofferson is already a singer-songwriter, and we’ll change the story a bit.”

“At first, when I heard it was going to be done again, it was supposed to be Will Smith and Beyoncé, and I thought, ‘That’s interesting.’ Really make it different again, different kind of music, integrated actors,” she said, referring to early casting news about Beyoncé starring in a Clint Eastwood-directed remake. “I thought that was a great idea, so I was surprised when I saw how alike it was to the version that I did in 1976.”

“I thought it was the wrong idea,” she added, acknowledging the movie was a hit. The movie was nominated for eight Oscars, and took home the award for best original song, Lady Gaga’s “Shallow.” It made over $436 million, a success Streisand can’t deny. “I can’t argue with success, but I don’t care so much about success as I do originality,” she said.