The Lady Gaga Oscar campaign continued to give last night when Ms. Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! to discuss her House of Gucci star turn. Somehow she still had more to spill about the production — even after revealing that she stayed in character for months, faced flies potentially sent by the real-life Patrizia Reggiani, and improvised a since-deleted hookup scene with Salma Hayek’s Giuseppina Auriemma, among other revelations.
For starters, speaking to Kimmel, Gaga shared that Jared Leto, as the highly prosthetic Paolo Gucci, was also supremely in character throughout the process. “I never met Jared on set,” Gaga said. “I was always with Paolo; he was always with Patrizia.” In fact, she told Kimmel, everyone in House of Gucci went to extremes for their character. “I have to say, we don’t always talk abut this, but my fellow actors on that set — everybody was in character,” she said. “It was not just me.”
The Italian New Yorker went on to add that her line “Father, son, and House of Gucci,” which has been iconic since the film’s first trailer, was improvised by her. “It wasn’t in the script,” she said. And not just that — it was based on a mantra she’d say on set. “I used to do it in my trailer as a prayer before I went to do my scenes,” Gaga explained. “So after the team got me all ready and I’d studied, and you know, before I’d go on set, I’d go, [in Italian accent] ‘Father, son, and House of Gucci.’” As long as Gaga’s the one talking about her methods, we’ll be here to listen.
