As you may have guessed from her joyful presence at the Academy Awards last month, Julie Andrews truly adored Lady Gaga’s performance during the Sound Of Music montage during the ceremony. The iconic actress appeared on stage after the sultry singer had performed, and she’s now confirmed that she wasn’t faking the appreciation that she showered upon the pop singer at the time.
When asked for her thoughts on Lady Gaga’s tribute to The Sound Of Music during an interview with People, the actress responded enthisastically,"She hit it out of the ballpark." However, Andrews wasn’t just impressed with Gaga’s singing, but her demeanor as well. The singer/songwriter actually called Andrews to make sure that the she was okay with the rendition, and Andrews was further impressed that Gaga didn’t make a fuss about handing over the stage immediately after her performance. Said the Oscar winner,
"That’s a really wonderful thing to do too I think. As they say in Hollywood jargon, ‘She rates tall in my book.’
Julie Andrews took to the stage to hand out the Best Original Score Academy Award just moments after the final note of had left Gaga’s mouth. And the pair’s warm embrace was one of the sweetest and most endearing moments of the entire extravaganza. In the hours leading up to the ceremony, there were many rumors and suggestions that Lady Gaga would be honoring both Julie Andrews and The Sound Of Music to celebrate the musical’s 50th anniversary. Those proved to be well founded, as Scarlett Johansson introduced Lady Gaga, who then effortlessly warbled her way through the film’s best-known songs. You can watch Gaga’s sublime homage below.
To think there were some people who were worried that Lady Gaga would do Andrews a disservice. And while it’s safe to say that her repertoire didn’t quite live up to Andrews’ original efforts, Gaga was still good enough to make a grown man contemplate moving to Austria and belt out a song on top of a mountain. I’m still not sure if any of her Sound Of Music renditions were quite as good as "Bad Romance" though.
I’d argue that it was only the second or maybe even the third best performance of the entire Oscars evening. Because while Gaga was awesome, she wasn’t quite "Everything Was Awesome," and John Legend and Common singing Selma’s "Glory" was so insanely powerful and emotional that it reduced most of the star-studded crowd to tears. Still, for me, Lonely Island and Tegan & Sara’s contagiously bubbly and joyful performance was the true musical highlight. It was the Batman playing guitar alongside Questlove that just cinched it.
