Lady Gaga Said Her 'House of Gucci' Trailer Was "Like a Science Lab"

During a recent junket for House of Gucci, Lady Gaga opened up about what it took to transform into espresso-sipping Italian murderess Patrizia Reggiani (spoiler: many wigs).

"I love transformation, I love fashion, I love hair and makeup," Gaga stated in her quintessential list-making manner. "My trailer was like a science lab," she went on. "There [were] 15 wigs … Frederic Aspiras, who did my hair for the film, actually cut the wig on my head as [director Ridley Scott] was standing there directing him to cut my hair."

But despite the measures she took to physically liken herself to Reggiani, Gaga saw the aesthetic factors as secondary to her performance.

"There were murals and murals of Patrizia and all of her looks over the years, but what was really important to me was that her heart shined through ... and that when you were watching this film and you saw her you weren't seeing her clothes, you were seeing her."

"The clothes should never be a distraction," she went on. "The clothes should be a part of the human being that you're playing. Even the way that my eyeliner was shaped, the lipliner that we did that was similar to hers ... it's the nuance that's the difference between an imitation of somebody and a becoming of someone."

That "becoming" was pretty literal for Gaga, who stayed in character throughout filming.

Reggiani famously hired a hitman to execute her Gucci heir ex-husband Maurizio Gucci in 1995. She was sentenced to 29 years in prison in 1998, but was released on good behavior five years ago.

The pop icon recalled driving past the site of the Gucci murder and feeling the immensity of what she, as Reggiani, had done.

"I remember driving by and I felt that pit drop in my stomach because I was so in my character and I thought 'What have I done?'" she said. "We made art out of pain."

Gaga went on to explain that she felt as though her character died at the end of the film due to her belief that "when you kill somebody you kill yourself."

"There was nothing left of her," Gaga said, adding that she saw Reggiani as constantly striving to be on a level that she wasn't. "I think that she never quite made it. She was never as shiny as the Guccis. She really wanted to be but there was always something about her that was trying to matter."

Essential as speaking in a thick Italian accent for nine months was to Gaga's preparation, so too was finding the perfect partner: Adam Driver.

As a "huge admirer of Adam's work," Gaga thought that she and Driver as the ill-fated Patrizia and Maurizio, respectively, "would really be magic."

"She did not marry him for his money, I do not believe," Gaga said of her and Driver's real-life counterparts. "And I don't believe that's why she had him murdered, either."

Well, Gaga may never find out. Though Reggiani herself was "annoyed" by this choice, Gaga told British Vogue that she opted not to meet the woman she'd portray onscreen. "Nobody was going to tell me who Patrizia Gucci was," she told the magazine, "Not even Patrizia Gucci."

House of Gucci opens in theaters nationwide Nov. 24.