Lady Gaga has spoken many times about how she "became" Patrizia Reggiani, the real-life woman she portrays in the movie House of Gucci. Now she says that towards the end of filming, she believes that Reggiani sent her a very unusual message.
Gaga is on the cover of W magazine's "Best Performances" issue, and in the accompanying interview, she says, "On the last day of filming, I was on the balcony of my apartment in Rome, and I was blasting Dean Martin singing 'Mambo Italiano,' and I had a cigarette hanging out of my mouth. I was Patrizia. But I knew I had to say goodbye to her."
"Large swarms of flies kept following me around, and I truly began to believe that she had sent them," Gaga continues. "I was ready to let her go."
Even before House of Gucci was released, Reggiani told the Italian news service ANSA, "I am rather annoyed at the fact that Lady Gaga is playing me in the new Ridley Scott film without having had the consideration and sensibility to come and meet me....it is a question of good sense and respect."
Gaga later told British Vogue why she didn't want to meet Reggiani, who spent 18 years in jail for hiring a hitman to kill her ex-husband, Maurizio Gucci.
"I only felt that I could truly do this story justice if I approached it with the eye of a curious woman...so that I could read between the lines of what was happening in the film’s scenes," Gaga explained. "Meaning that nobody was going to tell me who Patrizia...was. Not even Patrizia.”
Wednesday morning, Gaga received a Screen Actors Guild nomination for Female Actor in a Leading Role, while the House of Gucci cast is nominated for Cast in a Motion Picture.