Adam Lambert could have played Lady Gaga’s best friend in A Star Is Born, but he was not convinced about taking the role.
In the years predating the release of A Star Is Born in 2018, Lady Gaga was known almost exclusively for her music. She had already risen to the top of the game as a singer, with six Grammy wins — and many more nominations — to her name by that point in time. When she starred alongside Bradley Cooper in the musical romantic drama film, however, she also etched her name into Hollywood folklore as a bona fide, A-list actor.
Cooper was also the director for the film, in what was his first time ever playing that role in any production. Before him, Clint Eastwood had been in talks to helm the project, at a time when Beyoncé was also being considered for the role that was eventually played by Gaga.
Beyoncé and Eastwood were not the only big names to come into consideration for various roles in A Star Is Born, before the production eventually went a different way. The film itself was a remake of three previous ones of the same name, including a rock musical from 1976 starring Barbara Streisand. Tom Cruise, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lopez and Shakira were all weighed up as options for the two leading characters in the movie.
Another major celebrity who might have been in A Star Is Born is Adam Lambert. The former American Idol star even went as far as auditioning for the film, but he was never truly comfortable with the role he was up for.
Adam Lambert and Lady Gaga have a history of collaborating together, especially in the music industry. In 2009, the Whataya Want from Me singer opened for Gaga during her Monster Ball tour, which was a massive success. The pair also worked together on the song Fever, which was included in the deluxe edition of Gaga’s debut album, The Fame (later reissued as The Fame Monster).
In an interview with MTV after that, Lambert expressed his admiration for Lady Gaga’s creativity, artistry and overall larger-than-life persona. “Gaga! Working in the studio with Gaga was a trip,” he said. “[Gaga’s creative team,] the Haus of Gaga, came in at the end to say hi. She was just there. We were working with her and Jeff Bhasker and we recorded the song, and she egged me on and it was crazy.”
This history would have likely served Lambert and Gaga well had they collaborated once again in A Star Is Born. That eventuality never materialized, however, as he never truly bought into his potential character, and the producers decided to go in another direction anyway.
In March 2021, Adam Lambert revealed to the Brenda, Call Me! podcast by Courtney Act that he had auditioned for the role of Ramon in A Star Is Born. The character was portrayed in the film as best friend to Lady Gaga’s Ally. He sticks to her side through her rise from being a very reserved waitress, to hitting the highest heights of fame as a singer.
Thanks to Lambert’s hesitation — and the decision by the casting team not to hire him anyway, the role of Ramon went to Anthony Ramos. The actor was previously best known for his work on stage, including in the musical plays In the Heights and Hamilton.
It is impossible to say how A Star Is Born would have looked with Lambert in it, but Ramos and Gaga were able to generate good enough chemistry to make the story shine. The pair had actually met for the first time during the first table read.
One of the elements that drew Adam Lambert to the character Ramon in A Star Is Born was his being gay. “Do you know, it’s funny, I auditioned for that part in A Star is Born?,” the singer said in his interview on Brenda, Call Me! “It was so funny to me, because they told me about it and they were like, ‘[Lady Gaga] is going to have like a gay best friend,’ and I was like, ‘OK that could be cute!”
Lambert was first outed as a gay man during his campaign to win American Idol in 2009. Despite that unfortunate turn of events, he reclaimed the narrative by confirming his orientation to Rolling Stone a few months later: “I don’t think it should be a surprise for anyone to hear that I’m gay.”
While Lambert shared a sexual identity with the character Ramon, the same could not be said of his ethnicity. “I got the script and [realized that] he was a Latin American character,” he told Courtney Act. “[I wondered,] ‘How is this gonna work? Should I just not go to the audition? This is not my part.”
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Rugunya is a Features writer for TheThings, with a particular slant towards Celebrity, Reality Television, Movies & other TV content. From time to time, he also writes on sports news and events. He is also a scriptwriter with a few TV episodes and indie short film credits to his name.
