Fierce. Confident. Strong. Indestructible. These are just a few words that come to mind when you think of Lady Gaga. But, in her latest interview, Gaga stripped away the artifice and opened up about some deeply personal issues — from her reservations on joining the AHS cast to the isolation of fame.
The music icon sat down with E! News on the set of American Horror Story: Hotel, the fourth installment Ryan Murphy's creepy hit premiering October 7 on FX. Gaga revealed that, despite her perpetually confident demeanor, she was scared when she first joined the show. "I was not actually that fearless when I first came to this set. I was very nervous," she said. "I’m new to acting in a lot of ways."
More than her acting chops, though, the singer — who plays The Countess, a 100-year-old woman with a lust for blood and orgies — was nervous about what her co-stars would think of her.
"I really wanted to bond with the cast, and I wanted to get to know them, and I wanted them to feel comfortable with me as a human being and a person, and know that I was going to be available and open to them, and that I wasn’t going to come on set and be like, ‘Where’s my make up?!, Where’s my trailer?!,’ and be a huge bitch and make this The Gaga Show."
Gaga confessed that her fears stem from her experience with the loneliness that often accompanies massive fame. "I do know isolation," she said, "because I'm famous, and it's hard to go be normal all the time. And when you meet people in public, 99% of the time, people aren't that interested in really getting to know me. There's sort of a wall between us that they think something of me that I'm not."
But it sounds like Gaga needn't have worried, as her co-stars welcomed her with open arms.
"I'm happier than I've ever been now," Gaga shared, "because the people that I work with really, really care that my life is different and really, really work to make sure that I feel as normal as possible — so that I can have a great time and just be a normal girl." Though she was speaking on her personal experience, Gaga offered a larger message for the industry — and anyone, really — about working with others. "I haven't said this before, and I should have... I really hope, more than anything that anyone could take away from me being on Horror Story, I'd really, really like for artists and their managers and people in any industry to know the importance of caring for people that you work with, and keeping them in a good mental state and taking care of their health, and making sure that we're all okay. It's important to work hard, and making money is important to survive, but what's more important is that we support one another through the challenges of life." The full interview airs tonight, October 6, on E!
"I'm happier than I've ever been now," Gaga shared, "because the people that I work with really, really care that my life is different and really, really work to make sure that I feel as normal as possible — so that I can have a great time and just be a normal girl." Though she was speaking on her personal experience, Gaga offered a larger message for the industry — and anyone, really — about working with others. "I haven't said this before, and I should have... I really hope, more than anything that anyone could take away from me being on Horror Story, I'd really, really like for artists and their managers and people in any industry to know the importance of caring for people that you work with, and keeping them in a good mental state and taking care of their health, and making sure that we're all okay. It's important to work hard, and making money is important to survive, but what's more important is that we support one another through the challenges of life." The full interview airs tonight, October 6, on E!