Lady Gaga says she ‘slapped herself out of her nerves’ to learn how to improvise

Lady Gaga has said that she had to “slap herself out of her nerves” when she first began acting in films.

Speaking to Zoe Ball on the BBC Radio 2 breakfast show ahead of the release of House of Gucci, the actor and musician was asked about her ability to improvise on camera.

“Improvising actually was really hard for me when I first started on A Star is Born,” said Gaga.

“I know this sounds silly but literally after doing one take of one scene, where I couldn’t improvise, I just slapped myself out of my nerves and said, ‘You need to throw all the work away that you’ve done and you need to just be in the room and be in the circumstances.’

“I learned very quickly,” she added.

Gaga also revealed that one of the film’s most oft-repeated lines (“Father, son, and house of Gucci”), which featured in the first trailer for House of Gucci, was not originally in the script, and had been improvised by her.

“The ‘father, son and house of Gucci’ thing that everybody laughs about… that was not in the script. It was because Jared [Leto] and I were working, and there was this comedic energy between us that felt not unlike the way a family would be together, talking about life.”

House of Gucci is out in cinemas from 26 November.