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Ain’t no diva like a Broadway diva, because a Broadway diva will run you down loud enough so the back row can hear it. While a guest on Andy Cohen’s Watch What Happens Live on Monday night, stage legend Patti LuPone was asked by a caller what she thought of Madonna’s performance in the 1996 film version of Evita. LuPone, of course, played the title role in the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical during its original Broadway run, winning her first Tony Award in the process. Her appraisal of Madonna? Let’s see if we can decipher her carefully chosen words:
“I was on the treadmill, back when MTV used to have videos, and I saw I believe it was ‘Buenos Aires,’ and I thought it was a piece of shit. Madonna is a movie killer. She’s dead behind the eyes, she cannot act her way out of a paper bag, she should not be in film or on stage. She’s a wonderful performer for, you know, what she does. But she is not an actress.”
You might want to think about setting up a lounge chair in that shade.
Madonna has faced this kind of criticism of her acting since she debuted in Desperately Seeking Susan in 1985. After doggedly pursuing the role in Evita for many years, she won the role and took home a Golden Globe for it (beating Frances McDormand for Fargo in the process!). She hasn’t acted in a film since Swept Away bombed severely in 2002. Madonna’s one foray into Broadway acting — in a 1988 production of Speed-the-Plow — was not met with very good reviews.
Patti LuPone is currently Tony nominated for her role in Broadway’s War Paint, where she can be found eight times a week engaging in a diva throwdown with a blonde rival in front of an audience of rapt homosexuals. This is a woman who knows how to stay on brand.
