Lady Gaga became a singer after failing as an actress

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Lady Gaga had dreams of stardom on the silver screen long before she became a chart-topping pop star.

Ahead of the Toronto film festival premiere of A Star Is Born, which opens Oct. 5, Gaga revealed her childhood wish was to become an actress.

“I was a young girl in New York who had a dream of being an actress one day and I didn’t make it as an actress, so I decided to go for it as a musician,” she tells a small group of journalists.

After failing at acting auditions, Gaga set her sights on the stage.

“When I was 19 years old, I told my parents I was dropping out of school and I was dragging my piano around New York City banging on doors so that I could perform,” she says. “I was even lying, pretending to be my own manager so I could get the 10 p.m. slot when there would be the most people at the club as possible.”

Still, she couldn’t shake the acting bug. First, Gaga landed a role on Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story: Hotel (for which she won a Golden Globe). Then, when Bradley Cooper was looking to cast the lead in his revamp of A Star Is Born, she threw herself into the role of Ally, a burgeoning singer-songwriter whose life is changed by a chance encounter with a music superstar (played by Cooper).

“There could be 99 people who don’t believe in you,” she told the crowd at the film’s Toronto premiere. “You just need one and it can change your whole life.”

To get into the part, Gaga immersed herself in acting workshops. She changed her hair colour and took her makeup off.

“It was a challenge,” she says, “but as Bradley says to me in the film and everyday, ‘All you got to do is trust me,’ and I did and it took the nerves away.”

Now, after a rapturous reception at TIFF and with awards season chatter, Lady Gaga says she’s just “humble and grateful to be here.”

“To know that this film moves people, moves my heart as well.”

A Star Is Born opens Friday, Oct. 5.

Twitter: @markhdaniell

mdaniell@postmedia.com