Lady Gaga is having a very big moment right now. In addition to starting her Las Vegas residency, the pop singer made her leading lady debut in Bradley Cooper’s directorial debut A Star Is Born. Gaga has taken home a SAG award for her performance, and is even nominated to Best Actress at this year’s Academy Awards.
But Lady Gaga has been open about how nerves affected her on set, especially during the first few days of A Star Is Born’s production. Eric Roth wrote the script for the musical drama alongside Bradley Cooper, and recently revealed a conversation he had with Gaga early in the process, and how Cher helped inspire Ally Maine. As he tells it,
[Gaga] asked me what character I could think of that would help her play this, because it wasn’t quite in her DNA to be an actress yet, and I told her to look at Cher in Moonstruck. You had a vulnerable quality in that character. Very streetwise and sure of herself in certain areas, and a little bit lost in others
Is anyone else’s mind blown? While moviegoers might not have equated these two movies together, upon examination I can totally see the similarities between Lady Gaga’s Ally and Cher’s Loretta Castorini.
Eric Roth’s comments to Deadline once again shows how nervous Lady Gaga was during the earlier stages of her time playing Ally Maine. While she came from a theater background and has starred in projects like American Horror Story: Coven, playing the lead character in A Star Is Born was quite the departure.
Much like Cher in Moonstruck, Lady Gaga brought a mixture of vulnerability and swagger to Ally Maine that captured moviegoers’ attentions from her first scene in the bathroom. Eli Roth picked a great example of the type of characterization Gaga needed, and it seems it really paid off for the singer/actress.
Of course, the parallels between Ally and Loretta are also obvious in the performers who inhabited those roles. Just like Cher in Moonstruck, Lady Gaga had the pressure of being a popular singer dipping her toes into the acting world. Ultimately both performances were critically acclaimed, with Cher winning the Best Actress Oscar at the 60th Academy Awards.
Lady Gaga would no doubt like to follow suit in this way, and take home a coveted statue for her role in A Star Is Born. But the cards may be stacked against Mother Monster, considering how the rest of the Awards Ceremonies have gone down. While Gaga was honored with tons of nominations, she’s been largely losing to Glenn Close for her outstanding performance in The Wife. She did take home a SAG Award, but that victory was due to being tied with Close
We’ll see if Lady Gaga takes home an Oscar when the Academy Awards air February 24th. In the meantime, check out our 2019 release list to plan your next trip to the movies.
