Patti LuPone has some harsh words for Madonna.
During an appearance on Tuesday’s episode of “Watch What Happens Livve with Andy Cohen,” the 68-year-old Broadway icon blasted the pop diva’s acting chops from the 1996 musical, “Evita,” in which Madonna, 58, took on the lead role of Eva Perón, originally made famous by LuPone.
“Well, I was on the treadmill when MTV used to have videos, and I saw, I believe it was Buenos Aires and I thought it was a piece of s–t,” LuPone sniped. “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 what she does, but she is not an actress. Bang.”
LuPone, who won the Tony Award for her performance in “Evita” in 1980, also recalled her first and only encounter with the Grammy winner.
“I did meet her after her opening night party, and the only thing that Madonna has ever said to me was, ‘I’m taller than you.’ Bada bing,” LuPone shared.
LuPone also weighed in on the 2012 film production of “Les Miserables,” as she starred in the original 1985 London production as the iconic Fantine.
“I only saw a little bit of it, but I’ll tell you, I’m going to be honest, I think the only person who knows how to do movie musicals, or musicals on camera, is Rachel Bloom in ‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.’ She is the only one that understands how to go from dialogue to song so that it makes sense. Her camera department knows how to shoot these rather large production numbers,” she said.
“And what I saw in “Les Mis” … I didn’t see “Les Mis” after I left it. I’m too involved in it to go see it. But what I did see, I wondered why the hell they were doing close-ups of these people so that you were seeing the snot, you were seeing down their throat. You were not seeing the scene that perpetuated this emotion in this song.”
While Anne Hathaway portrayed Fantine in the live-action adaptation, LuPone jabbed not everyone is equipped to take on musicals.
“I just … I don’t know why people assume they can do musicals or make movie musicals without ever having been involved with the process of making a musical,” LuPone noted. “That’s the thing I don’t understand.”