Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga (birthname: Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta) is both a striking and original pop singer-songwriter of immense vocal strength and stylistic boldness as well as a big-screen actor exhibiting a similar taste for bold performing strokes, immediately apparent in her debut film turn in director/co-writer/producer/cinematographer/editor/composer Robert Rodriguez’s sequel Machete Kills (2013), starring Danny Trejo, Michelle Rodriguez, Sofia Vergara, Amber Heard, Antonio Banderas, Cuba Gooding Jr., Walton Goggins, Demian Bichir and Mel Gibson, grossing a poor $17.5 million for Open Roads Films.

Gaga followed the next year in another pulpy supporting turn for filmmaker Rodriguez in the Frank Miller-written sequel Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014), with Mickey Rourke, Jessica Alba, Josh Brolin, Juno Temple, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Rosario Dawson, Bruce Willis, Eva Green, Powers Boothe, Dennis Haysbert, Ray Liotta, Jeremy Piven and Christopher Meloni, but which failed at the box office with The Weinstein Company as distributor.

Gaga became a bona fide movie star with her remarkable lead role in the acclaimed third big-screen version of A Star Is Born (2018), directed by her co-star Bradley Cooper, with Andrew Dice Clay, Dave Chappelle, and Sam Elliott, and which premiered at the Venice Film Festival, landing eight Oscar nominations and a win for Gaga for her song “Shallow” (contributing to Gaga becoming the first woman to win an Oscar, Grammy, BAFTA and Golden Globe in the same year), and finally returning a terrific $436 million gross to Warner Bros.

Gaga’s next film performance was as a co-star in a broader and more flamboyant vein in the Ridley Scott-directed House of Gucci (2021), co-starring Adam Driver, Jared Leto, Jeremy Irons, and Al Pacino, earning Gaga more awards love from the Globes, BAFTA as well as the Screen Actors Guild and grossing a good $147.4 million on a $75 million budget. Lady Gaga joined star Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker as Harley Quinn in director/writer/producer Todd Phillips’ sequel, Joker: Folie à Deux (2024), co-starring Brendan Gleeson, Catherine Keener, and Zazie Beetz, premiering at the Venice Film Festival and released by Warner Bros. as part of a planned “DC Black” film series.