Lady Gaga in House of Gucci. (IMDb)
An eye-opening video has revealed just how close to the mark Gaga’s Patrizia Reggiani was to the real deal.
Gaga’s Italian accent in the new Ridley Scott film has been the topic of much conversation in recent weeks after she revealed that she spoke in it for nine months as part of her method acting.
The latest to weigh in was Francesca De Martini, who worked on the House of Gucci set coaching Salma Hayek with her own Naples accent.
“I feel bad saying this,” De Martini told the Daily Beast, “but [Gaga’s] accent is not exactly an Italian accent. It sounds more Russian.”
“I was noticing when I was on set, because I had earphones working with Salma and hearing what she was saying so I could help her to get it right, so I could hear Lady Gaga as well,” she added.
Fans naturally rushed to Gaga’s defence, with fan pages sharing meticulous side-by-side comparisons of Gaga’s accent to Reggiani’s own.
First 12 hours:
500K on TikTok
120K on Twitter
110K on YouTube
110K on Instagram
30K on FacebookPart 3 is coming #HouseOfGuccipic.twitter.com/pCjrKLadXr
— Gaga Daily Plus (@gagadailyplus) November 16, 2021
Lady Gaga and Patrizia Reggiani accent comparison (Part 3) #HouseOfGucci pic.twitter.com/8XDKBrW5ip
— Gaga Daily (@gagadaily) November 16, 2021
As one YouTube commenter pointed out, Reggiani “wanted to sound like a rich, powerful woman” so spoke in an “extremely performative” way.
Lady Gaga stayed in House of Gucci character for ‘a year and a half’
“Gaga’s accent should be compared to Patrizia,” they wrote, “not the average Italian.”
Patrizia Reggiani was once a jet-set socialite known to the press as “Lady Gucci”.
But she soon became known as the “Black Widow” after it emerged she hired Benedetto Ceraulo and Orazio Cicala to carry out the killing of her husband, Maurizio Gucci.
House of Gucci recounts how Reggiani was convicted in 1998 of ordering the assassination of the Gucci heir, played by Adam Driver.
Lady Gaga has spoken candidly about the mental toll that playing Reggiani took on her.
She claims to have stayed in character for 18 months, speaking and even thinking like the heiress.
“It is three years since I started working on it,” Gaga said in an interview with British Vogue.
“And I will be fully honest and transparent: I lived as [Reggiani] for a year and a half. And I spoke with an accent for nine months of that.”
“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.”
At one point, she said, “I drove by where Maurizio [Gucci] was shot and I felt a pin drop in my stomach because I was so in my character, and I thought: ‘What have I done?’”