The House of Gucci press tour has been frolicsome all round, but the commentary around one scene in particular has been especially frisky. The first chunk of Ridley Scott’s brash true-crime drama concerns the strategic seduction of Adam Driver’s Maurizio Gucci, a staid young fashion-house scion, by Lady Gaga’s Patrizia Reggiani, a thrusting young nouveau-riche socialite. 

Patrizia’s father runs a successful haulage firm, where Maurizio finds work after he’s disowned by his horrified father (Jeremy Irons), who regards this ruby-lipped bombshell as a gold-digger trying her luck. One day, Patrizia teasingly lures Maurizio into the site office, and the pair make love on the desk – except “making love” doesn’t begin to capture the pneumatic frenzy that ensues. Puccini swells on the soundtrack, before being supplanted by George Michael’s Faith, while the pair’s own nonverbal romantic vocalisations suggest a jailbreak at the monkey sanctuary.

“I studied animals, actually, for this,” Gaga told ITV News. (She was talking about the role in general, but in this scene, the preparations definitely show.) “I studied a house cat, a fox, and a panther. I studied the way they seduced. The way they hunted. The way they would [reproduce]. The way they would enjoy themselves.”

Meanwhile, in an interview with CinemaBlend, Scott said he only realised the scene should be played for laughs when Gaga and Driver pushed their performances so far on set.

“Because these two are fearless and formidable, I suddenly saw [that] it’s funny,” he said, adding that Gaga asked him before filming commenced: “What do you want this to be?”