TIME:Lady Gaga's AHS performance is her greatest reinvention
Lady Gaga’s American Horror Story Performance Is Her Greatest Reinvention Yet
Quote:
The pop star shows her chops as an all-around entertainer on Hotel
She’s appearing as an actress on American Horror Story, whose season premiere airs Wednesday night. None of these things directly relate to Gaga’s career as a pop performer in the vein of Beyoncé, Katy Perry, or Taylor Swift. But all of them add to the sense that she may just grow up to be the thing her generation didn’t know it needed: An all-around entertainer.
The new season of American Horror Story, subtitled Hotel, has been marketed around Lady Gaga’s role; this is understandable both because of how novel such an acting gig is for a music-world star and because AHS‘s longtime resident diva, Jessica Lange, has left the premises.
Lady Gaga speaks in a vaguely European, unplaceable accent; call it actress-ese.
When there’s finally vocal music on AHS, it’s a dark emo song perfectly suiting the visuals of Gaga committing murder. This isn’t Artpop promo, or hype for whatever is the next record; something longer-range is happening here.
Not merely has Gaga deigned to work on basic cable, but she’s offscreen for much of the first episode; both Kathy Bates and Wes Bentley in particular feel far more central to the proceedings. This is both a laudable acknowledgment of her acting experience relative to the more experienced cast—in her time onscreen so far, she’s been asked to be “imperious,” a tone she can master—and something that feels deeply weird. One of the most talked-about singers of the decade is now running for Best Supporting Actress?
Gaga is doing the same thing she’s been doing since the fate of her last pop album became clear, when she popped in for surprise moments of jazz mastery or Oscars glamour. For both her devoted fans and the uninitiated, she ends up doing something that the nonstop album-promotional cycle never allowed her to do: Leave us wanting more.
Most of the reviews are also praising her AHS performance, literally 1 of them drags her and it came out before the premiere and the other one statest that they are not yet sure. All of the others say she was great