House of Gucci is one of those movies that you can tell has its eye on Oscar gold. It has an incredible cast of accomplished actors telling a dramatic story based on true events. However, while the people being played by the likes of Adam Driver and Al Pacino are real, there are some questions about the performance of Lady Gaga, as those who have seen the trailer have questioned the actress’ “Italian” accent, and even the on set dialogue coach admits it’s not that great.
Italian actress and coach Francesca De Martini was brought onto the set of House of Gucci, after being unsuccessful in getting a role in the movie, to be a dialogue coach for Salma Hayak. De Martini never worked directly with Lady Gaga, but she did hear Gaga’s performance due to listening to some of the scenes that Gaga and Hayak had together, and she admits to The Daily Beast that the accent doesn’t actually sound Italian at all. According to her...
I feel bad saying this, but her accent is not exactly an Italian accent, it sounds more Russian.
This is a sentiment that a lot of people have following the first trailer for House of Gucci. The feeling from some is that Lady Gaga’s accent sounds like she Eastern European rather than Italian. It’s somewhat surprising considering that Gaga did work with her own dialogue coach prior to filming, and she has talked about how much time she spent with the accent.
To be fair, Lady Gaga isn’t the only accent in House of Gucci that Francesca De Martini is critical of. She also says that Al Pacino’s accent is more “New York Italian” than actual Italian, which checks out, because this is Al Pacino after all. Also, she says Adam Driver has basically no accent whatsoever.
Francesca De Martini does, of course, have good things to say about Salma Hayak’s accent, but it’s not simply that the two worked together. Hayak was apparently the only of the major players to actually work with a dialogue coach while the movie was shooting.
Hollywood and accents have a wild history. Sometimes movies work hard to try and get the accents right, sometimes the movies just don’t bother. Accents likely won’t be that big a factor in the success or quality of House of Gucci. If everything else in the movie works, the strange accents will just be an odd afterthought. If the movie doesn’t work, it won’t be because of the accents.
House of Gucci arrives in theaters next week. All the accents will get a fair shake once we actually see the film and are not judging trailers alone. For the most part, those that have seen the movie, didn’t seem to care about the accents much.
