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.