Lady Gaga lived as her House of Gucci character for 18 months to prepare for the role

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She spoke in an Italian accent for half that time

Lady Gaga in House of Gucci
(Image credit: Universal)

Lady Gaga has revealed that she tried method acting for her role as Patrizia Reggiani in House of Gucci, staying in character for 18 months. 

"It is three years since I started working on it, and I will be fully honest and transparent: I lived as her [Reggiani] for a year and a half. And I spoke with an accent for nine months of that," Gaga told British Vogue. "Off camera, [too]. I never broke. I stayed with her."

In the movie, Gaga plays the ex-wife of Adam Driver's Italian fashion house boss Maurizio Gucci. It's based on the book The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed and will focus on Gucci’s murder – Reggiani was tried and convicted of orchestrating his assassination in 1995. 

"It was nearly impossible for me to speak in the accent as a blonde," Gaga added. "I instantly had to dye my hair, and I started to live in a way whereby anything that I looked at, anything that I touched, I started to take notice of where and when I could see money. I started to take photographs as well. I have no evidence that Patrizia was a photographer, but I thought as an exercise, and finding her interests in life, that I would become a photographer, so I took my point-and-shoot camera everywhere that I went. I noticed that Patrizia loved beautiful things. If something wasn’t beautiful, I deleted it."

Alongside Gaga and Driver, Jeremy Irons will play Rodolfo Gucci, Maurizio’s father, while Jared Leto and Al Pacino are also on board to star, playing Paolo Gucci and Aldo Gucci respectively. 

House of Gucci arrives on the big screen on November 24. In the meantime, check out our list of the other upcoming movies to get excited about in 2021 and beyond. 

Emily Garbutt
Entertainment Writer

I’m an Entertainment Writer here at GamesRadar+, covering everything film and TV-related across the Total Film and SFX sections. I help bring you all the latest news and also the occasional feature too. I’ve previously written for publications like HuffPost and i-D after getting my NCTJ Diploma in Multimedia Journalism.