Lady Gaga Channeled Robert Durst For Her Countess Character On ‘American Horror Story’

Lady Gaga won a Golden Globe for her performance as The Countess on American Horror Story: Hotel last season, and now she has revealed the main source of inspiration for the twisted character was suspected murderer Robert Durst. Durst, a New York City real estate heir suspected of three killings, took part in HBO’s The Jinx and infamously seemed to admit to the crimes near the end of the series when he thought his microphone was off. And it was that docu-series that Gaga studied in order to channel the “practical” evil of her character.

“Every day I would watch Robert Durst in The Jinx and his wife Debrah Durst and I would sort of study the practical nature in which he was devious and evil,” she said in an interview with Jamie Lee Curtis as part of PBS and Variety’s “Actors On Actors.” “He just has this extremely practical way of explaining how he’s going to conceal the fact that he’s, ya know, dumped a body in a river and kept it in his house and cut up his best friend.”

She added: “So I let that inform me as The Countess. Because if I was going to take a guy home and fuck him and then eat him, I wouldn’t know exactly how to do that.” Always know your source material!

The two stars also talked about the “character” Lady Gaga and what it symbolizes to fans and to Gaga herself at this point. Watch their chat below.