The performer gets vulnerable in her latest interview.
Just because a celebrity is seemingly on top of the world doesn’t mean they don’t experience moments of self-doubt, just like anyone else.
Lady Gaga sat down for an interview recently to discuss her acting role in Bradley Cooper’s directorial debut, A Star Is Born, where she got candid about the insecurities that plague her.
"It's very lonely being a performer,” she tells the Los Angeles Times. “There's a certain loneliness that I feel, anyway—that I'm the only one that does what I do. So, it feels like no one understands. And the urge to use is because you're searching for a way to quell the pain. When I first started to perform around the country doing nightclubs, there was stuff everywhere, but I had already partied when I was younger, so I didn't dabble. I was able to avoid it because I did it when I was a kid."
Must of this introspection was brought on by becoming Ally, a struggling singer who finds guidance from established musician Jackson Maine (played by Cooper) in the upcoming film. According to Gaga, Cooper wanted raw vulnerability from her in order to capture the essence of an artist struggling to continue to perform.
Although she was already a Golden Globe-winning actress for her role on American Horror Story: Hotel, she was asked to do a screen test for the part because people “don’t’ really know what I look like,” she explained. When she arrived for the audition, she was wearing makeup, which Cooper asked her to remove.
"It put me right in the place I needed to be, because when my character talks about how ugly she feels—that was real," she states. "I'm so insecure. I like to preach, but I don’t always practice what I preach."
Although the parallels between her and her character are numerous, Gaga clarified that Ally’s hopelessness early in the film has never been how she’s internalized the low points in her life.
"When we meet Ally, she's given up on herself. And that's very different from me. I just wasn't overwhelmed by the odds. The truth is, if we were not sitting here today and I hadn't sold as many records as I have, I'd still be in a bar somewhere playing the piano and singing. It's just who I want to be," she says. "I was dragging my piano from dive bar to dive bar to play music. I was calling people, faking being my own manager to get gigs. I really believed in myself that I could do this and that I wasn't going to stop until I made it."
The 32-year-old singer recently jetted off to Europe ahead of the premiere of A Star Is Born at the 75th Venice Film Festival. And on Thursday, Mother Monster made quite the arrival to Italy's Floating City, riding in on a water taxi while wearing a black ‘80s-inspired dress featuring a high slit. She completed the look by wearing her blonde locks pulled into stylish pin curls for the lavish event.
Never one to shy away from making a statement, Gaga has also shared a number of risqué photos in recent days from photographer and frequent Kanye West collaborator, Eli Russell Linnetz. In some images, her familiar face and figure are warped into eerie shapes. In others, she poses totally nude. However, at this point, it’s anyone’s guess what she’s promoting, if anything.
A Star Is Born arrives in theaters on Oct. 5.
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