Thankfully for the entire population of planet Earth, Patti LuPone has been in the news a lot lately, courtesy of her scene-stealing role in Agatha All Along.
While the actress and Broadway legend has been in the game for decades, all the renewed attention in the wake of her appearance in the Marvel TV series has seen a swathe of her iconic moments come back to light. In one recently resurfaced clip that’s currently doing the rounds online, LuPone does not mince words when discussing pop star Madonna, and honestly she left no crumbs.
Back in 2017, LuPone mentioned Madonna during an interview on Watch What Happens Live, in which she was asked whether she’d ever discussed sharing an acting role with the singer. For context, both LuPone and Madonna portrayed the character of Eva Perón, with the former playing the role in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Evita and the latter doing the same in the subsequent movie adaption.
While answering the question on the Andy Cohen-hosted talk show, LuPone said she had never spoken to Madonna about their shared character, before launching into a tirade about the singer’s acting chops. Among other colorful descriptors, LuPone described Madonna’s performance of the Evita song “Buenos Aires” as a “piece of sh*t,” and said the singer’s acting is bad enough to make her a “movie killer.”
“She’s dead behind the eyes,” LuPone quipped of Madonna, “she cannot act her way out of a paper bag. She should not be in film or on stage.” The Broadway star conceded that while Madonna is an excellent musician and a “wonderful performer for what she does, she is not an actor.” While the passage of time might’ve made LuPone soften on these views, she actually doubled-down on the opinion earlier this year.
While appearing alongside her Agatha co-star Aubrey Plaza in an episode Hot Ones Versus, LuPone was asked whether she’d prefer to apologize to Madonna for her 2017 comments or eat a spicy wing. Of course, since she’s a legendary diva, LuPone gobbled down the wing to the bone, before reiterating her thoughts on musicians like Madonna venturing on to the big screen. “”There’s just some things some people can’t do,” LuPone told Plaza.
“You just gotta admit you can’t do it, that’s all,” she added. This sentiment, as LuPone went on to explain, extends to reality tv star-turned actress Kim Kardashian, whom LuPone lumped in with Madonna as a star whose talents are best displayed away from acting roles.
“Like f**king Kim Kardashian,” LuPone explained, “can we go there? Or shall I eat another wing?”. LuPone’s entire argument resurfaced in the wake of rumors that singer Billie Eilish might be joining LuPone in the MCU. The speculation goes that Eilish is being eyed for the Rogue in Marvel’s upcoming X-Men reboot, leading fans to reiterate, perhaps jokingly, LuPone’s case that singers should stick to music.
Of course, Eilish’s future in the MCU is purely speculative at this point, since X-Men is only in the very early stages of development, but her taking on an acting role would not be without precedent. The pop star last appeared as a somewhat major character in 2023’s Swarm, the horror series created by Donald Glover.
With all that, maybe LuPone will soon be eating her words (and not spicy wings) if she hypothetically shares a cinematic universe with Eilish. Heck, given Marvel’s multiverse-jumping antics of late, maybe there’s even a place for Madonna.