As turnarounds go, it’s been impressive. Just a year ago, Lady Gaga – the woman who, a decade before, brought us Bad Romance and Poker Face – had failed to score anything like the same commercial success with her latest album, Joanne, and was forced to cancel the final dates of her European tour due to crippling fibromyalgia.
Today, by contrast, 32-year-old Gaga has a $100- million contract for a Las Vegas residency, performing 74 shows over two years at a 5,300-seat theatre. She is a serious contender for the Best Actress Oscar at next Sunday’s ceremony for her critically acclaimed performance as Ally in A Star Is Born. Another nomination, for Best Original Song for Shallow, made history: Gaga is the first person ever to be nominated in both categories. This is the home stretch of a dazzling return to the top, as well as a career transformation that has been years in the planning and execution, and which even music and film critics didn’t see coming.
‘Gaga sees her road to making A Star Is Born, and getting recognised for her work in it at this year’s Academy Awards, as one of the most pivotal moments of her life and career,’ says an insider close to the singer’s camp. ‘She’s always been emotionally attached to her art, but she sees it as a career-redefining role, one that could have been given to countless other stars.’ And, indeed, it almost was – Beyoncé was originally tipped to play Ally, and the casting of Gaga took many by surprise. ‘When it was first announced, I wrote that the casting choice was a disaster,’ admits Johnny Oleksinski, entertainment critic for the New York Post. ‘Then, two years later, I turned around and gave the movie four out of five stars and said she is worthy of an Oscar.’
The story of how Bradley Cooper saw Gaga sing La Vie En Rose at a benefit concert and drove the next day to her Malibu home to ‘test their chemistry’ has almost become Hollywood mythology. During Gaga’s screen test at her home, Bradley stepped towards her and wiped o her make-up. He didn’t want the pop star masked in make-up. He wanted her to be ‘completely open, no artifice’. ‘It put me right in the place I needed to be, because when my character talks about how ugly she feels – that was real,’ Gaga told the LA Times. The pair went on to bond over their families as they ate spaghetti and meatballs on the deck of Gaga’s home. Bradley has also paid tribute to the fact that, just as Ally became Jackson Maine’s muse on screen, Gaga became his off-screen, too. In a recent interview, he revealed he learned guitar, worked with a vocal coach and a piano teacher for a year and a half, and wrote three of the songs, ‘all because of Gaga’.
Many wondered how effectively Gaga could strip away the powerful public persona she has created – what she herself calls ‘the armour of the Gaga characters that I had built before’ – to become the unvarnished Ally. ‘She approached it almost as a method actor and completely threw herself into the role, which Bradley found hugely impressive,’ added the insider. She lived for months in the penthouse of Hollywood’s Chateau Marmont, where she would shoot scenes of the movie with Bradley – to get into character.
But if anyone believes there is anything remotely accidental in this reinvention, that would be to wildly underestimate Gaga’s determination. As a little girl, Gaga grew up obsessed with Judy Garland. She used to watch the Oscars wrapped in a gown made of blankets, accepting a fake Oscar on a crate in front of her TV. ‘She sees the movie as the opportunity to expand her acting career, which she and Christian have been masterminding together for some time now,’ says the insider. Christian Carino, her 49-year-old fiancé, is an agent at the Creative Arts Agency (CAA), one of the most powerful talent agencies in Hollywood. ‘From the very beginning of their relationship he has been instrumental in preparing Gaga for her big movie star moment,’ says the insider. As well as representing his own bride-to-be, he also works with Reese Witherspoon, Johnny Depp, Jennifer Lopez and Miley Cyrus.
‘She has been navigating a fearsome schedule, frequently flying between New York and Los Angeles to attend screenings, all while prepping for her Las Vegas residency, and she couldn’t have balanced both without Christian by her side,’ adds the insider. Because, while the Oscars is the zenith of the industry awards, the season is now a six-month process, and almost a full-time job in itself. Oscar buzz begins in earnest in August, at the Venice Film Festival. Perhaps tellingly, Lady Gaga arrived to much fanfare on-board a boat last year, prompting headlines that she had ‘stolen hearts’ at the festival.
It kicked off a punishing schedule of endless festivals (London, Berlin and Toronto), other awards ceremonies (the Golden Globes, SAG and Critics Choice to name but three) and myriad lunches, interviews, panels and public appearances. Little wonder, really, that Gaga perfected that quote about Bradley for her juggernaut press tour, which has now become its own meme: ‘There can be 100 people in a room and 99 of them don’t believe in you, but all it takes is one and it just changes your whole life.’
Cementing the transition? A definitive style casting her firmly in the role of Hollywood icon. ‘There is a sense of timelessness surrounding her style, the essence of old Hollywood glamour offset with a modern twist, giving her a unique edge,’ says Tamara Ralph of Ralph & Russo, who dressed the star in black ruffles for the Toronto Film Festival. Since then, she has also donned ivory floor-length Dior couture for the SAG awards, and channelled Judy Garland herself in an epic powder-blue Valentino gown for the Golden Globes.
But while she may only have recently begun dressing like one, Gaga has always had the mystique of an old-school Hollywood star. In spite of more than 10 years in the public eye, we know relatively little about Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta. As a recent New York Times profile attested, ‘As we toured her house, Gaga was as opaque as Ally is transparent.’
‘She brings to mind a Garland, or a Joan Crawford, back when stars would retreat to their Hollywood mansions and truly live out their private lives in private,’ notes Oleksinski. ‘She has always had this wall of character that she has stood behind. at mystique translates to screen in a very exciting way.’
Hollywood certainly seems to think so. ‘There have already been offers on the table, and both Gaga and Christian have been actively seeking out projects together that they feel would be good for her next step,’ says the insider. ‘Streaming giants such as Netflix and Amazon Prime are all desperate to work with her on another project – the buzz she has generated from this first starring role is mammoth. And taking stock of all the accolades she’s received so far, the general consensus is that for Gaga the actress the sky is the limit.