If you’re a film buff or a Little Monster, you likely know that Lady Gaga takes method acting very seriously.
So much so, in fact, that while filming House of Gucci, in which the superstar plays Italian socialite Patrizia Reggiani, she requested the presence of a psychiatric nurse on set because she felt it was “safer.”
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She explained her approach in a recent interview with Variety, saying that she lived as Reggiani for the whole of filming. “I was the same way for ‘A Star Is Born.’ I was always Ally,” Gaga said. “And for this, I was always Patrizia. I always spoke in my accent. And even if I was speaking about things that weren’t related to the movie—I wasn’t pretending that Maurizio was waiting for me downstairs—I was still living my life. I just lived it as her.”
Being Patrizia had repercussions for Gaga off set. She continued, “I brought the darkness with me home because her life was dark.”
During the final days of shooting, Gaga told the outlet that she sought help from a mental health professional on set. “I had a psychiatric nurse with me towards the end of filming,” she said. “I sort of felt like I had to. I felt that it was safer for me.”
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Still, the Oscar winner said she doesn’t want to “glorify” this approach to her craft. “I don’t think that any actor should push themselves to that limit,” she said. “And I ask myself all the time why I do that. I’ve done some pretty extreme art pieces throughout my career—the things I’ve put my body through, my mind. It’s like a walnut of sadness in my stomach as I say this to you. I don’t know why I’m like that. I think that the best answer I could give you is I have a sort of romantic relationship with suffering for your art that I developed as a young girl, and it just sometimes goes too far. And when it does go too far, it can be hard to reel it in on your own.”
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She added that having a family might alter the way she works in these settings in the future. “It’s not a secret that I’ll do anything for art,” Gaga said. “I probably will completely change this when I have a child, but I don’t have a child yet. I want to be available and present for my children in a way that I think when you are acting in that way, it could be problematic for a child to be around.”
This article originally appeared on Harper’s BAZAAR US.
