Lady Gaga looks back on her small role in The Sopranos—and she has some notes
Before she was Lady Gaga, she played "Girl at Swimming Pool #2" in season three of The Sopranos
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Years before Lady Gaga made her debut with 2008's The Fame, and became one of the biggest names in pop music and eventually starred in blockbuster films, Stefani Germanotta played a small background role in an episode from The Sopranos’ third season.
In the 2001 episode, “The Telltale Moozadell,” 14-year-old Gaga plays a cigarette smoking, giggling young girl who looks on as A.J. Soprano (Robert Iler) and his friends destroy the school’s pool. The scene only lasts a few moments, but in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Gaga points out exactly where she went wrong.
“When I look back on that scene I can see exactly what I did wrong in that scene,” Gaga says. “I didn’t know how to listen in a scene! I was supposed to laugh, and it was sort of like, cue, laugh…. I see it and I go, ‘oh, that’s not a real laugh!’”
From looking at the thumbnail of the clip alone—marone—she was really laying the laughter on thick.
Gaga, now a seasoned actor with one Academy Award under her belt (for “Shallow” from A Star Is Born) and plenty of buzz for her first acting nod, has learned a thing or two about acting in the last twenty years.
“The nuance and being specific as an actor is something that can grow over time if you’re willing to listen and really hear the other actor that you’re working with,” Gaga tells EW.
For Germanotta, this would be her first and only acting role until the birth of Lady Gaga. After a few years fully focused on music, she took on roles in films such as Muppets Most Wanted, Machete Kills, as well as recurring roles on Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story. She earned her Oscar for her performance in the remake of A Star Is Born, and has returned to the silver screen for Ridley Scott’s House Of Gucci.
50 Comments
She was fine. Is it legal for a 14 year old to smoke? Did they give her a fake cigarette or something?
It’s not illegal to smoke. Only illegal to purchase.
Is it illegal to procure cigarettes for a 14 year old? Did production staff provide it?
Production staff will provide you anything you want. 😉
It is illegal for a person to be as fucking stupid you are.
Fucking bonehead.
I couldn’t resist
Cigarettes used in film production are almost always fake, even for adults. It’s been that way for decades.
Just like the guns on the Rust set?
all cigarettes on movie sets and tv are herbal cigarettes, without tobacco
I do know that Alec Baldwin 100% did not give that girl a real cigarette.
The cast of The Sopranos included several actual mobsters who were later arrested for their crimes. 14-year-old Lady Gaga smoking on set is like the 300th most illegal thing that happened during production of that show.
Wait, what? Who?? I’ve seen the show a bajillion times over, and knew Walnuts was connected in real life, but who was actively involved in the mafia?
The actor who played Larry Boy Barese is a Gambino associate who was active during and after production of the show. Albert Barese and Matt Bevilaqua were also convicted of crimes…https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ibtimes.com/life-imitates-art-sopranos-actor-sent-jail-mob-related-extortion-265235%3Famp%3D1
I knew about Brancato, but oh damn. Huh.
I personally provided her with cigarettes, and was later arrested for it.
You make it sound like she won an acting Oscar, which didn’t happen.
She’s won awards for her music, which like acting through song!
avclub!
She didn’t, but fawning over Lady Gaga’s acting fits in perfectly with the AV Club Narrative ™.
Jennifer Hudson won an acting Oscar for singing! Anything can happen on Hollywood’s big night.
“She earned her Oscar for her performance in the remake of A Star Is Born”Makes it sound like? They just outright state it!
(Though they at least don’t mangle the sentence by running it through the Kinja filter)
That line certainly suggests she won an acting Oscar, but the article also says this:“Gaga, now a seasoned actor with one Academy Award under her belt (for “Shallow” from A Star Is Born) … “That is clear that she only has one Oscar, and that Oscar is for a song. Poorly written for sure, but whatever this “AV Club Narrative” thing is sounds pretty histrionic.
I’m surprised they didn’t mention the acting award she did win, even though they mentioned the show (AHS), a 2016 Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Miniseries
Well she is a multi award winning actor. (10 awards, according to google)
They should have included her in one of the poker games
I’d front her a few boxes of ziti. But if she didn’t pay me back, well…she knew who I was. It’s my nature.
How do you wake up Lady Gaga from a nap? Poke ’er face.
Back when she was Lil’ Miss Goo Goo.
Bleached blonde hair and dark eyebrows–never a good look.
A) ah, she was fine – she was giggling, it didn’t stick out as anything bad in the scene.
B) god, A.J. was such a shit.
I think that’s why I barely remember the scene. Anything with AJ just gets tuned out. People who complained about Walt Jr. on Breaking Bad forgot all about AJ (or never watched The Sopranos).
I always liked the Soprano kids’ names. Obviously Carmela had her way when the first was born, because she was girl and would never take over the business. So, “Meadow”, exactly the name like Carmela would choose, as something vaguely exotic-seeming and evocative of – well, I don’t know, nature, the pretty parts of New Jersey.Then AJ comes along, a boy, so he was gonna be Anthony no matter what.At any rate, neither of them amounted to much, automotively speaking.
For a brief moment there it looked like AJ had the makings of a varsity athlete.
I just figured it was standard Jersey white trash names
Meadow is an obvious flower power hippie name.
That was a wonderful underhanded jab at both of their parking skills.
Bran Stark gets my vote for gear screeching momentum killer.
Christ, aren’t they in bare feet after their swim? All that glass!
I don’t think I’ve ever hated a recurring television character as much as I did A.J. It was a special combination of a character written to be almost completely worthless (so he’d be a big enough disappointment to his father) and an actor who had all the range and charisma of a bag of sand. Whenever he appeared on screen I wanted the scene to be over.
“ON YOUR MOTHER’S BIRTHDAY?!”“It was after midnight……..”
Delinquents!
She never had the makings of a varsity athlete.
It’s fun that outside of a remake of a music movie that required her to stretch not at all she’s been in a bunch of dogshit.I don’t hate her as much as I find it mildly baffling that she has any kind of reputation outside of the music. Like I’ve heard “Cher” whispers about her and sorry but fuck no.ETA: Just as a mildly interesting side note, I was freelance script reading when Machete Kills was being passed around for production and distro funding and it was one of the biggest disappointments of my career. I love the first Machete. The sequel is such wasted potential.
Fucking up your dumb school is actually pretty rad. This was when AJ was constantly getting shit for being a normal kid with a healthy sense of rebellion.
And then there’s her other role on the show, where she, playing herself, shoots Tony in the head. But HBO couldn’t afford the appearance fee, so when she’s about to walk into the diner they just abruptly cut to black.
You say she plays “Girl at Swimming Pool #2″, but I only see one swimming pool in that scene.
It’s called that because AJ poops in the pool
So, having never actually watched the Sopranos, I believe this might be my very first scene of the show that I’ve seen. And for it to be this incredibly random moment of kids trashing a pool, with no context to whatsoever – I think it’s delightful. I can only hope I’ll never get around to watching the Sopranos, so my view of it will always remain as “That show about the super giggly high school brats that threw a bunch of shit into a pool”.