'A Star Is Born's' Lady Gaga reveals real tragedy behind tearful final scene – Business Insider

Warning: Minor spoilers ahead for “A Star Is Born.”
Lady Gaga has an incredibly heartbreaking scene at the end of “A Star Is Born,” and her emotions in that moment were real.
During an interview with Zane Lowe for Apple Music, the 32-year-old actress and singer revealed the day she filmed that scene, she received a phone call saying her longtime friend Sonja Durham, the managing director of Haus of Gaga, wasn’t doing well in her battle with stage 4 breast, brain, and lung cancer.
“I left the set … I didn’t even stop to see Bradley [Cooper],” she told Lowe. “I just got in my car and started driving, and I missed her by 10 minutes.”
I don’t know how to put a price on a friendship. I’m not even sure how you can assess the size of its meaning, only really your heart truly knows and it’s too special for words. I feel two competing feelings. Firstly, that I will live everyday with more passion, more determination, more compassion and more giving than ever before. Because that’s who she was, and it’s what drew us to each other, and I know it’s what she always wanted for me. She had this incredible way of releasing me from the anchor of my own sadness that held me back, she loved me fearlessly while I learned how to cope with fame and stay inspired no matter how scared I was. She knew all I cared about was the music. She made that ok. The other feeling I have is that of being robbed of the last 10 years of my life, friendship and career with her. Like someone took her from us, and with that taking took all the good times. I know that’s not true, and I know that I have those memories forever, I’m just in shock that I will never have new ones with her. I’m in shock that I won’t see her again until I pass too. I vow to be a little stronger everyday for her because that’s what she would have wanted, I vow to be stronger for anyone who’s lost somebody to cancer. I’m a part of that family now. I vow to be a warrior for her and be a voice for cancer patients so the world can continue to improve the dialogue and the fight. I loved her. I still love her. And I love so much her husband Andre, stepson Sante, and friends. I made them some food yesterday. I will keep cooking. Cooking my soul until it understands this. Last thing I told her, “Go find Joanne, Sonj.” Somehow I think she did. @sonjad7777 #sonjadurham #grigiogirls
A post shared by Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) on May 21, 2017 at 5:57pm PDTMay 21, 2017 at 5:57pm PDT
Gaga lay with her friend for a while before telling Durham’s husband that she didn’t know what to do. He told her that she needed to do what Durham would’ve wanted Gaga to do — go sing.
“She gave me a tragic gift that day, and I took it with me,” Gaga said. “I went back to set, and I sang that song for Jackson and for her on that very same day, within an hour.”
In “A Star Is Born,” Gaga’s character, Ally, meets and falls in love with Jackson Maine, a musician played by Cooper. Maine commits suicide towards the end of movie and Ally’s final scene is a tribute to her late husband. She tearfully sings “I’ll Never Love Again,” a song Maine wrote for her, at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.
Gaga said Cooper didn’t pressure her into doing the scene more than she needed to, but she told him that she just wanted to sing.
“I remember after one take, he took the monitor and he brought it to me, and he showed me what is the last frame of the film, and he said to me, ‘This is going to be the last frame of this movie,'” she said. “She becomes famous in the film, but a star is not born until the end. I think the star in this film is human courage. It’s bravery.”
Watch Gaga tell the story below.
“A Star Is Born” is now open in theaters.
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