In “House of Gucci,” as Lady Gaga’s fashion industry climber Patrizia Reggiani starts to unravel, she finds counsel in hack TV psychic Giuseppina “Pina” Auriemma, played by Salma Hayek. The two share a number of memorable scenes in Ridley Scott’s Oscar contender plotting the murder of Patrizia’s husband Maurizio (Adam Driver), bathing in mud, and forecasting the future as Patrizia succumbs to romantic despair.
Well, according to the actress in a recent awards Q&A in Europe (shared in a video by Pop Crave), that relationship was actually meant to go in a much more intimate direction. According to Gaga, they were meant to have a sexual relationship that wound up on the cutting room floor.
“There’s a whole side of this film that you did not see, where Pina and I developed a sexual relationship,” Lady Gaga said. “Director’s cut, who knows. This is a testament to [Ridley Scott] as a director because he allowed us to go there, and I remember being on set with Salma and going, ‘So after Maurizio dies, maybe it gets hot?’ And she was like, ‘What are you talking about?'”
“You think she’s kidding,” Hayek interjected. Watch the clip below.
Lady Gaga has been vocal about the backstory she built for Patrizia Reggiani (and without ever meeting the woman herself) and how director Scott gave the actors the space to play. She herself was also notoriously in character, Italian accent and all, throughout production. Gaga spoke to IndieWire’s Anne Thompson about Scott’s methods, saying, “It was remarkable to be around everybody who was seemingly always in character. Ridley Scott’s an amazing director in the way that he’s a conductor. And we’re all different instruments in the symphony. What makes this film work so well, is there’s different sections. You have the woodwinds, the horn section, you have the strings. And he’s the conductor making it all sing and making the music.”
Gaga has also spoken about having a psychiatric nurse on set for part of filming. “I sort of felt like I had to. I felt that it was safer for me,” she told Variety. “That’s because I was always Patrizia. I always spoke in my accent. And even if I was speaking about things that weren’t related to the movie — I wasn’t pretending that Maurizio [her husband played by Adam Driver] was waiting for me downstairs — I was still living my life. I just lived it as her.”
Lady Gaga says that her and Salma Hayek’s ‘House of Gucci’ characters developed a sеxual relationship in scenes that didn’t make the final cut. pic.twitter.com/yuU5Ov2nis
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) January 19, 2022
