Lady Gaga appeared on the Academy Awards stage Sunday evening to ship a shock efficiency of “Maintain My Hand,” the Oscar-nominated track from “Top Gun: Maverick” — and the one factor extra startling than that it occurred in any respect, after earlier denials, was simply how stripped-down, but enormously efficient, her studying of the track was.
Gaga had initially been expected to skip the show because of the filming calls for of the sequel “Joker: Folie à Deux,” however, in a speedy change of plans, the star was confirmed to be performing by Variety sources early Sunday morning.
Befitting the last-minute nature of the efficiency, Gaga was extra dressed-down than she’s ever been in a tv efficiency, belting out her ballad in a T-shirt, shorts and with little obvious in the best way of hair or make-up glam. The track obtained a surprisingly rootsy, rock-band manufacturing, versus the far slicker soundtrack model, and was interrupted by whoops and hollers from a clearly captivated viewers.
“its deeply private for me. all of us want one another. we want a variety of like to stroll by way of this life. We want heroes generally. there’s heroes throughout us…. you would possibly discover which you can be your individual hero even should you really feel damaged inside.”
Because the viewers gave her a standing ovation, a dedication to authentic “Prime Gun” director Tony Scott appeared on an overhead display screen on the Dolby Theatre.
Gaga is the primary artist to obtain three nominations in one of the best authentic track class with “Holy My Hand” from “Prime Gun: Maverick,” “Til It Occurs to You” from “The Searching Floor” in 2016, and “Shallow” from “A Star Is Born” in 2019. The latter granted Gaga her first Oscar win, alongside co-writers Mark Ronson, Andrew Wyatt and Anthony Rossomando.
“Thanks a lot to the Academy for nominating my track ‘Maintain My Hand’ for an Oscar this yr! Penning this track for the movie ‘Prime Gun: Maverick’ was a deep and highly effective expertise that I’ll always remember,” Gaga wrote on social media on the time of the nomination announcement. “So grateful for the magic of music and cinema.” Giving props to her co-writer Bloodpop, she signed off with, “I’m on set filming now huge like to little monsters!”
She made her first on-stage debut in 2015, delivering a medley of 4 songs from “The Sound of Music” to honor that movie on its fiftieth anniversary. She returned in 2016 to carry out “Til It Occurs to You” and once more in 2019 for a efficiency of “Shallow,” alongside duet associate Bradley Cooper.
“Maintain My Hand” is considered one of six nominations that “Prime Gun: Maverick” acquired. The Tom Cruise-starring movie is up for finest image alongside two different field workplace giants, “Avatar: The Means of Water” and “Elvis,” together with Steven Spielberg’s semi-autobiographical “The Fabelmans,” ”Tár,” “Girls Speaking” and “Triangle of Disappointment.” See the complete checklist of nominees here.
Gaga first launched “Maintain My Hand” in Could 2022 and concurrently dropped the song’s accompanying music video, which was helmed by the movie’s director Joseph Kosinski.
This yr, Gaga joins fellow finest authentic track nominees Rihanna (“Carry Me Up”), Sofia Carson and Diane Warren (“Applause”), Stephanie Hsu, David Byrne and Son Lux (“This Is a Life”) and Rahul Sipligunj and Kaala Bhairava (“Naatu Naatu”) as performers on the Oscars stage.
